DD Adventure
by draggy1404
Summary: AU. When Yusei and Akiza are confronted by an old enemy, what does he have in store for them? Meanwhile, Star and his gang are trying to free his hometown from the evil Syndicate. Can the two groups join forces in time to survive?
1. Prologue

**A/N: This is my first Yu-Gi-Oh! 5d's fanfic, actually my first fanfic ever, so…**

**The summary says that the story is in an AU, actually it starts in Yusei's world then shifts to an AU.  
**

**I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5d's.**

**Now…on with the story!

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Prologue, Part 1: A Normal Day at the Garage

-New Domino City, 10:00 A.M.-

_New Domino City_ _really is beautiful,_ thought Yusei Fudo, as he took a break from working on his new and improved duel runner program to stare out of the window at the city. Cars and Duel Runners whisked by on the road, the sky was clear and blue, the Kaiba Corporation tower, the tallest building in the city, was as pristine as ever. All was well.

Yusei shuddered as he remembered a time when he had seen the tower from a completely different perspective—a _flipped_ perspective. At the time, he had been dueling Z-one "on top" of the Arc Cradle. It didn't help that he had been _flying_, doing endless barrel rolls as he sought to overpower Z-one. And then Z-one's mask fell off and he looked just like Yusei and then he declared that he _was_ Yusei—

He shook his head to clear it. He and his friends had saved New Domino from Z-one, and that's all that mattered.

He was brought back to reality when a card spun through the air and embedded itself in his spiky black hair, right next to one of the golden highlights.

Without turning around, he said, "Leo, what have I told you about playing 'Armed Ninja'?"

A small, green-haired boy with a ponytail and a blue shirt came running up to Yusei.

"Sorry, Yusei," he said meekly as Yusei plucked the card out of his hair—Morphtronic Celfon—and handed it to him. "I just thought it would be cool to practice throwing cards…"

"It's not fun for _me_ if the card is thrown at me, is it?" chided Yusei gently.

A girl, identical to the boy except that her hair was in two ponytails instead of one and her shirt was pink, ran up next to him, looking embarrassed.

"Leo drank too much soda last night," explained the girl, Luna. "Even though he slept, he's still working off the sugar rush."

Yusei smiled saying, "That's okay, Luna. Leo, if you're going to play, play safe, okay?" Leo nodded and ran out of the room.

Leo and Luna were twins who were similar in appearance but polar opposites in personality. Leo was loud, hyper, and immature while Luna was quiet, calm, and very mature for a 12-year-old.

"Where did Jack and Crow go, by the way?" asked Yusei.

Luna answered, "Um, I saw Jack leaving to get his coffee about an hour ago…"

Yusei groaned. "We're barely making rent as it is! Why does he have to spend money on unnecessary things like coffee?"

"Because I need to wake up in the morning, that's why!" This answer came from a blond-haired boy with spiky hair, dressed up in only white clothing. He had just entered through the front door. "Do you want me to be stumbling around like a zombie all day?"

"Better to be acting like a zombie with a roof over your head than acting like a zombie on the street, Jack!" An orange-haired boy—Crow—was walking down the stairs, dressed in a brown sleeveless vest, orange shirt, and jeans. "We're never gonna be able to afford the rent if you keep spending money on stupid things!"

Jack Atlas was an arrogant guy who relied almost solely on power, both physically and in his duels. Crow Hogan, the group's "trick star", came up with innovative ways to win duels. For some reason, even though they were good friends, they also tended to blow up minor arguments into huge fights and duels.

"My morning coffee isn't stupid, birdbrain!" replied Jack, offended. They started towards each other menacingly. Their argument might have come to blows had not a red-haired girl walked in the front door.

Yusei seized the opportunity. "Hey Akiza, could you police these two children for me?"

Akiza, who had assessed the situation immediately, smiled evilly. "It would be my pleasure, Yusei."

Akiza Izinski was unique in their group, as she had psychic powers. She could make duel monsters real, and make her opponents feel real damage. Because of this, she was mistreated by many, including her own parents. Then, a man named Sayer had manipulated her feelings and convinced her to join the Arcadia Movement, an organization of psychics. She had been its most loyal member until Yusei had shown her the truth about Sayer through a duel. In the end, Sayer had been eaten by Earthbound Immortal Ccarayhua during the battle against the Dark Signers, and everyone thought that he was dead.

She had lost her psychic powers a few weeks ago, but she was scary enough without them.

That last thought shot through the heads of both Crow and Jack, who immediately jumped away from each other as everyone laughed at them.

"So, Akiza, why are you here?" Crow asked, trying to cover up his moment of childishness.

"Well, I have a package for Yusei. The thing is, the person sent a big package to _me_, with a smaller package inside and instructions to give it to Yusei. Why would he go to that much trouble when he could just send it to you straight?"

"That's really strange," Yusei said. She handed him the smaller package, which he proceeded to open. It was a flash drive, of all things.

Crow said, "Obviously someone wants to send you some information, but why couldn't they send it by email?"

"Maybe they wanted to make sure it couldn't be monitored?" guessed Luna.

"Anyway, let's see what it is, Yusei," Jack said.

About a second before he was about to put it in the computer, two things happened.

First, Leo ran into the room and started clamoring to use his computer, not realizing what was going on.

Second, Yusei received an email alert that was marked, "urgent". The email address that the message had been sent to was his work address, and for him, work came before strange packages any day, especially with their dismal financial situation. He put the flash drive on the table.

The message was short. Yusei read aloud, "My car broke down on the road. I don't want my car to be towed, can you please come to Cobalt Ave ASAP? Thanks." It had been sent from a cell phone.

"Alright, I'll go fix this guy's car and then I'll find out what information this flash drive has. Akiza, do you want to come with me? You said you wanted to learn how to fix vehicles, right?"

Crow muttered, "We all know why you want her with you, Yusei…"

"What was that, Crow? I didn't hear you over the sound of me getting a hammer out of my toolbox," Yusei said casually. As he spoke, he tossed the hammer into the air, sending it flipping end over end without even looking at it.

"Nothing, nothing." Crow started backing up the steps. "It's totally fine with me, yes it is."

Yusei shook his head, and as he did, he noticed that Leo was still asking him to use his computer. He decided to set a password on his account so that his important files would be safe from Leo's meddling.

_What should I set my password to…?_

He suddenly got an idea.

_Should I set it to that? No way. I couldn't…No one will know, right?_

He blushed as he set his password. The only person in the garage who noticed was Luna, who cocked her head thoughtfully.

He then created a guest account for Leo.

"Ok, Akiza, let's go." Yusei grabbed his helmet and went into the back, where his, Jack's, and Crow's runners were waiting. Akiza went out the front door, picked up her own helmet, and settled into the seat of her runner as Yusei went onto the street next to her. They rode off in silence.

In a bit they were weaving through traffic on the highway as they made their way to Cobalt Avenue. Yusei nearly crashed his runner several times, as his attention was distracted by the girl riding next to him. He thought back to Crow's comment.

"_We all know why you want her with you, Yusei…"_

Yusei knew what Crow was thinking, but the thing that scared him was that he knew it was true.

_Stop. Stop. We're just friends, and I want to keep it that way._

He knew, however, that he would still wait, and watch, and hope. Because clustering hopes became dreams, and dreams came true sometimes, right?

-At the Garage-

Leo picked up the flash drive curiously and put it into the port on Yusei's computer. When he tried to open it, however, he got a message saying that the disk needed administrator access to open.

Then everyone remembered that Yusei's was the only administrator account on the computer.

And he had set a password.

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Prologue Part 2: Dawn of a Raid

-Backstory-

Twenty years before these events, Neo Domino City had been a thriving metropolis. Sector Security was kind to law-abiding citizens, fair in its judgments, and merciless to criminals. But a small, underground movement started gathering followers. Isolated at first, this movement spread through the backstreets, gathering followers as it went. When it got big enough, it started challenging Sector Security. At first, the Securities won their skirmishes easily. But then the organization gained many, many more followers and finally managed to take down the Securities and depose the acting Director. Proclaiming themselves the new directors of the city, they started to rule with extreme cruelty, using the new Syndicate Security as their iron fist.

They called themselves the Syndicate.

As is the norm in situations like this, people eventually started fighting back. After about 10 years, a small resistance sprang up in the city, trying to convince people to rebel. But people were scared, and they didn't want to ruin the lives that they had so carefully built under the Syndicate's rule. In the end, the freedom fighters struck out on their own, vowing to destroy the Syndicate using any means necessary. The freedom fighters conducted raids on Security and Syndicate buildings, stealing weapons and trying to get a chance to take out the Director. In the beginning of the revolution, there were about 100 freedom fighters. Years of fighting and running from the Syndicate took their toll, as some died while others simply went into hiding. Ten years after the rebellion started, the number of fighters was down to 6, all teenagers, all of whom had parents who died in the service of the rebellion.

These remaining freedom fighters called themselves the Signers, for reasons that they themselves didn't fully comprehend.

The Syndicate and the Signers fought through both mundane and magical means. All Signers carried concealed guns and other hidden weapons. The Syndicate, of course, armed its forces with the best weapons money could buy. However, they also fought by Summoning monsters. Summoning a monster, then keeping it in the battle, took immense amounts of energy. Some monsters were inherently weaker than others, but a Summoner with a strong will could power up his or her monster. All monsters had special abilities that were also fortified by willpower. Through everyone in Neo Domino had the potential to Summon, only a few people ever tapped into that power. The Signers and the Syndicate were part of those few who could use their power to Summon.

-Neo Domino City, 10:00 A.M.-

Star was looking out at the city, pressing the gold highlights on his spiky black hair to the window while he waited for the other five members of his squad to get dressed. He was joined at the window by a hyperactive, green-haired young boy named Prime. Prime was running around working off his sugar high from the previous day as Star watched and laughed at his antics. His twin sister, Angel, was none too happy about this.

"Prime, you have to be more serious! Today might be the biggest raid of our lives, so can't you settle down for a moment?"

"Don't worry, Angel, he'll calm down when the time comes," said Raven walked into the room, looking like he'd just gotten out of bed. His spiky orange hair was all over the place.

"He'd better, or I'll calm him down with my fist!" snapped a muffled voice from the bathroom.

"Ooh, Prime, I do believe the King is mad at you…" Raven said, smirking.

A softer voice came from the bottom of the stairs. "Guys, can you keep it down? The Securities have new technology that can detect the vibration from sound very accurately. The chances that they'll catch us are low, but still, we don't want our plan ruined before it even starts, do we?"

Star immediately turned away from Prime and looked at the source of the new voice, Rose. She wasn't dressed in her usual red clothing, but instead in one of the four guard's uniforms that they had stolen from the Securities barracks in preparation for this raid.

_She looks good,_ he thought. _But then again, she'd look good in anything…_

_Stop it, Star. That is _not_ a good place to go. What do you think is going to happen between you and her, anyway? Living happily ever after, riding off into the sunset? Yeah, right._

It was true that he had started seeing her as more than a friend, but being on the run pretty much frustrated any attempt he could make to get close to her.

But he would wait, and watch, and hope, because clustering hopes become dreams, and dreams came true sometimes, right?

He looked down, laughing at his own idiocy. _Yeah, I'll put that dream behind the one that I've been trying to achieve for years—the downfall of the Syndicate. How could I ever settle things with Rose anytime soon, when we've been fighting them for years and they're _still_ breathing down our necks__?_

"Earth to Star. Star. _Star._" He looked up to see Raven snapping his fingers at him. "We're about to leave. You ready?"

Star looked around the safe house, gathered his things. Among the things he gathered were some painted stones, about the size of playing cards. There were interesting designs etched on the stones. He studied one white stone in particular, as if it could give him all of the answers he sought. Finding none, he sighed and pocketed the stones.

"I'm ready."

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**A/N: And that's the prologue. Hope you guys like it! Sorry that it's kind of boring, but I wanted to set the scene for what's to come. I'm hoping to have Chapter 1 up very quickly. Please review. **


	2. Collision Course

**A/N: Alright, here's chapter 1. But first the disclaimer: **

**I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5d's.**

**On with the story!

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Chapter 1: Collision Course

Part 1: Administrative Error

-New Domino City, at the Garage, 10:10 A.M.-

Leo groaned in frustration. "Why does this stupid thing need an administrator? There's probably nothing important on it anyway."

"Well, Leo, if you hadn't barged in wanting to mess with his computer, he wouldn't have set a password, now, would he?" asked Luna.

"What's wrong with wanting to use a computer?" Leo whined.

"Well, he's usually watching you when you're on his computer so you don't delete anything important," said Luna reasonably. "So now that he's not watching you, he wants to protect his files."

"Let's figure out this password then!" exclaimed Leo, suddenly in high spirits.

Crow said, "Would you want Yusei barging into your room and rummaging around in it? No? So why would you want to break into Yusei's computer? I don't want to call him while he's on a job, so let's just wait for him to come back and open it."

Leo groaned again. "He better not keep us waiting."

-New Domino City, Satellite, 10:45-

Yusei and Akiza had parked outside of an abandoned building in the Satellite.

"Yusei, just admit it. We're lost." Akiza said irritably.

"We're not _lost_; I know exactly where we are. I just can't find this Cobalt Avenue," explained Yusei.

"Doesn't your duel runner have a map? Just search for it on there," said Akiza.

Yusei tapped his runner's screen for a few seconds. Puzzled, he said, "It wasn't anywhere on the map."

Akiza was silent for a few seconds. Then she said, "You think that someone is playing a trick on us?"

"I guess so. Something feels off, though…"

Akiza opened her mouth to reply when they heard a man yelling for help from a nearby alley. "We have to go help him!" exclaimed Yusei. Akiza had already disengaged her duel disk from her runner when Yusei got to his runner. They moved quietly towards the alley as they slipped their decks into the duel disks.

They were completely oblivious to the fact that two pairs of eyes were watching them.

-In a Dark Alley, 10:45-

The first pair of eyes belonged to the man who had screamed. Of course, the screaming was a ploy, one that was working. Yusei and Akiza were moving closer towards the alley every second. Getting closer and closer to him.

Closer and closer to meeting their fate.

And fate really did have a sense of humor, since it had chosen him to be their judge, jury, and executioner.

He arranged four cards on the top of his deck. They were all that he would need.

-Dark Alley, 10:47-

It had taken them a bit to find the alley, but their efforts were finally rewarded—they eventually reached an alley with a body lying at the end, in front of a wall. They ran to the end, but when they got there, the person had disappeared!

"Oh my, it looks like certain people have reached a _dead_ end," said a familiar voice behind them. It was a voice that had faded out of Yusei's memory over time, but this particular voice had haunted Akiza's nightmares ever since the business with the Dark Signers.

Both of them turned around to see one man whom they had never expected to see again.

Sayer.

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Part 2: Smash and Grab

-Neo Domino City, Abandoned Warehouse, 10:45 A.M.-

King frowned at the warehouse as he got out of the car that all six Signers had ridden in. "Are you sure this is the place?" he asked the twins. They nodded their heads eagerly.

"We were exploring here before our last raid, and we saw a bunch of Securities going into the warehouse," said Angel.

"But they never came out!" yelled Prime. "And then we saw them in Security headquarters during the raid!"

"If this is legit…" mused King.

"Then this would be a great way to strike at the Securities!" exclaimed Raven. "I'm all for it."

"It's up to you, Star. Do we go for it or use our usual entrance?" asked Rose.

He thought about it, weighing the probable risks and the possible benefits. His common sense screamed for him not go use the tunnel, it might be booby trapped, watched, or a number of other things.

On the other hand, their usual raiding entrance, a back door that led to a little-used mess hall, had had its guard tripled after their last raid.

_Now that I think about it, why did they guard that entrance _now,_ after we've used it so many times?_

He was well aware that he held everyone's lives in his hands, including Rose's. _Especially_ Rose's.

But the prize was good enough for all of them to risk everything for.

He made his decision.

"We're going through the warehouse."

Rose nodded. "Mind if I go over the plan again, Star?" He motioned for her to go ahead. "A few days ago, we found evidence that the Securities had received two incredibly rare summon stones. These stones are said to possess great power, but only in the hands of the right user. Fortunately, they haven't found the right user yet, or else they might have wiped us out already."

Prime's eyes grew wide. "These monsters are that powerful?" he gasped.

She smiled at his amazement. "That and more, Prime. Anyway, this vault is in the center of the Security building, right under the Chief's office. The security system on this vault is powered by three remote generators, placed in specific locations around the building. What we want to do is destroy them, then regroup at the Chief's office, get him away from the office somehow, crack the safe, and get out of there as fast as humanly possible."

Star took out a blueprint of the building and laid it on the hood for all of his friends to see. "Okay, so generator 1 is at this location, 2 is there, and 3 is there," he said, pointing to the generators on the map. "We're going in pairs. We do _not_ want to get involved in firefights or Summon battles, because they will just call for reinforcements to take us down. If we need to take out a guard, we need to do it quietly, and then hide the body. Everyone understand?" All heads nodded. "Good, so here are the pairs. Raven is with Angel." The pair slapped hands. "Prime is staying with the King." Both of the boys started protesting immediately, but they were quickly cut off by Star. "Guys, you two make a very strong combination. You just need to work out your differences for the duration of the raid, okay?" They made grumbling noises of assent. "That leaves me with Rose," he said, as she smiled at him.

The King muttered under his breath, "He gets to run around with Rose all day while he leaves me with this _brat_. We all know why he always wants to pair with her."

Star continued his monologue, oblivious to the blond boy's interjection. "We keep in touch with the communicators, as usual. You know the frequencies." He paused, gathering his thoughts, then spoke again. "What happens today might decide the future of the entire city, guys. Everyone ready?"

He stuck his fist out. One by one, the other Signers touched their fists to his.

* * *

Part 3: Divine Wrath

Yusei and Akiza stared in shock at Sayer, who looked exactly as he normally did: rough reddish-brown hair, a beige trench coat, and a scar over his right eye. What was different, however, was the look in his eyes: he seemed totally insane.

"You're wondering how I survived, aren't you? Well, it's ironic, actually. I have _you_ to thank for my resurrection. You see, when you defeated the Dark Signers, you released _everyone_ killed by the Earthbound Immortals. Including me."

Akiza started shaking.

Yusei saw this, and he tried to get closer to her to comfort her. Sayer was too fast for him, however. With a wave of his hand, he smashed Yusei into the wall, away from Akiza.

By the time he had gotten up, Sayer had already activated his duel disk and drawn four cards from his deck—the cards that he had prepared earlier. Sayer slapped the first card onto the disk, saying, "I activate the spell card Cold Wave!"

-Cold Wave-

Normal Spell Card

You can only activate this card at the start of your Main Phase 1. Until your next turn, you and your opponent cannot play or Set any spell or trap cards.

Yusei felt extremely cold all of a sudden. He realized that, to his horror, he was freezing in place! He couldn't turn his head, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see that something similar was happening to Akiza.

"What's the matter, Fudo, Akiza? Tongue-tied? Oh well, I guess it's actually better without you arguing with me for once." With that, he slapped three more cards onto his duel disk. "Come out, my three D.D. Warriors!"

-D.D. Warrior-

EARTH Attribute, Level 4, Warrior-Type Effect Monster

1200 ATK/1000 DEF

When this card battles a monster, after damage calculation remove from play that monster and this card.

_What? You can't normal summon three monsters in one turn!_ thought Yusei desperately.

"I seem to be breaking a couple of rules…Oh well, it's not as if you're in a position to do anything, are you, now?"

_Wait, is he going to attack? Oh, no! I have to do something!_

"D.D. Warriors one and two, you know what to do!" shouted Sayer happily.

The warrior on the left walked up to Akiza while the warrior on the right advanced towards the Head Signer. Yusei's warrior turned him so that he had could see what was happening to Akiza. D.D. Warrior was looking through her deck. He selected one card—Yusei saw a flash of orange—and tossed it to Sayer, who caught it. He then reached out with his sword and nicked Akiza's left arm.

_No!_

The sword had definitely cut her, but the wound wasn't bleeding. Something far worse was happening. Her body was disintegrating, starting from the point where the sword had touched her.

He could only watch helplessly as she, her duel disk, and her cards, still frozen in place, disappeared slowly.

"Ha ha ha! Do you like it, Fudo? The feeling of despair you get when something dear to you is stolen from you before your very eyes?" Sayer screamed at him maniacally.

_She was never dear to you!_ He tried to force the words out of his mouth, but he couldn't say them.

A sudden, overpowering urge came over him. He wanted to rush at Sayer, tear him limb from limb, beat him until he revealed where Akiza was and how to bring her back—

But he couldn't move.

Then he remembered the effect of D.D. Warrior.

_Wait, he can make monster effects real, and this is a Different Dimension Warrior…did she get sent to another dimension?_ His spirits lifted as he realized that there might be a way to find her.

The warrior that had attacked Akiza disintegrated in the same way.

Sayer just laughed. Then he ordered the second to attack Yusei.

The Head Signer hoped that he was just going to be nicked with the sword like Akiza was, but he was destined to be disappointed. The warrior walked around him slowly, sheathing his sword. Instead, he drew a short knife.

_This is not going to be good,_ thought Yusei desperately.

The warrior studied his face for a little, then started deliberately cutting his face. Surprisingly, the blade didn't hurt, although he could feel where it was cutting. Judging from what he felt, the warrior was carving a mark in his face symmetrical to his Facility mark.

_Is this Sayer's idea of a joke?_

Then he felt himself disintegrating. To his surprise, he could still think clearly, even though his body was slowly disappearing into another dimension.

Three thoughts swirled through his head.

_Judging by the way Sayer acted, he must still have some use for Akiza._

_Akiza, I am going to find you and bring you back, safe and sound, no matter the cost._

_He only needed two D.D. Warriors, one for each of us. Why did he summon three…?  
_

Sayer grinned contentedly. "Phase one is complete. Well, almost complete. There's one more thing I have to do before I can move on to the next step."

He stroked the card that the first warrior had taken from Akiza, and then placed it in his pocket.

"A rather _appropriate_ card, don't you think, Warrior?" The third D.D. Warrior seemed to nod in agreement. Sayer's eyes suddenly became unfocused, showing his inner madness even more clearly.

"I'm coming," he said in an insane, almost dreamy voice. Then he snapped back to himself.

He barked out his order to the final Warrior.

"Attack _me._"

-Building next to Dark Alley, 10:50-

The owner of the second pair of eyes that had been watching Yusei and Akiza earlier reeled back in shock.

Sayer was supposed to be _dead._

And as far as he knew, dead men couldn't laugh, talk, or duel.

Yusei and Akiza tried to fight him anyway, they all got cut by D.D. Warriors, and they all disappeared in the same way. The thing that puzzled him most was that Sayer—if that's who he was—seemed to have _planned_ the entire encounter. This disturbed him almost as much as seeing two Signers disappear in front of his eyes.

Officer Trudge knew that he had to tell the other Signers about this.

He had been on stakeout duty, trying to catch a gang of counterfeiters operating out of this neighborhood. Friends came first, however, so he left the case in the hands of his partner, parked Yusei's and Akiza's duel runners somewhere safe, and sped across the Daedalus Bridge to the garage.

* * *

Part 4: Hostage Crisis

-Neo Domino City, Warehouse Tunnel, 10:45-

The three pairs split off on their own paths at the bottom of the tunnel. Raven and Angel were getting along just fine, but Prime and the King were bickering softly. Star sighed. Rose smiled, saying that they were going to be fine.

"I hope so," said Star. They set off at a run to their control box.

The run was uneventful. They were both in great shape—being on the run forced you to stay on your toes—but Star was slightly faster than Rose. Both of them were starting to get uneasy about the situation.

Rose asked quietly, "If this is an entrance into the Security headquarters, why isn't it guarded?"

Star sighed, saying, "Your guess is as good as mine is right now. I—oh, we're at this point already?"

The path to generator 1 forked at that point that they had reached. Each path contained a switch that, when pressed along with the second, led to the connecting chamber that had an entrance into the first generator room.

"Pick a path," said Star. Rose immediately started down the right-side path, so he took the left fork. They both walked for a few minutes, encountering no resistance, until they each arrived at their respective switches. Rose punched in Star's frequency on her communicator, saying, "I'm at my switch, Star, just say when."

Star, who had also arrived at his switch, replied, "On the count of three. One, two, three!" They simultaneously flipped their switches to the "on" position.

At the end of each hallway, a door opened.

"I see the way into the connecting chamber, Star, meet you in a few seconds." Rose cut off the link.

Behind her, she heard a noise.

Without thinking, she turned around, rolling to the left and pulling out her pistol from its concealed holster.

There was nothing there. Rose holstered her weapon, breathing a sigh of relief. _Maybe I'm getting a little too jumpy._

Then she heard static from behind her, like the kind that was sometimes emitted by their communicators.

_Where is that sound coming from? _ _Star? He went into the connecting chamber and then back through the other tunnel in that short amount of time? He's fast, but not _that_ fast._

She started to turn around, not bothering to draw her weapon. If it turned out to be Star, she didn't want to accidentally shoot him, and if it wasn't him, well…

She had some tricks up her sleeve.

She felt something on her neck. _What is this?_

As she completed her turn, she stiffened.

It definitely wasn't Star.

The connecting chamber resembled a cave: large, unfinished, and empty. Star was standing in the center of the chamber, with one eye on the tunnel that he came out from and the other on the tunnel that Rose had taken. She should have been out by now, but he restrained himself from going in after her.

_Have a little faith in her. After all, she can handle herself._

Rose walked out of the tunnel about half a second after he had completed that thought. For some reason, her hands were behind her back. He began to jog up to her, asking, "What took you?"

She said fearfully, "Star, get out of here, quickly."

He stopped, surprised. "What?"

"I mean it, you have to gather the rest and escape from here before—"

Too late.

A tall, well-built man dressed in a Security uniform emerged from the tunnel behind Rose, smirking as he pressed a gun to her temple.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?"

Star was in shock. Out of all of the Signers, Rose was the one whom he least expected to get into a situation like this. He belatedly realized why her hands were behind her back: they were handcuffed there.

Reflexively, he reached for his gun in its holster, but then he stopped as he realized that if he pulled a gun, the officer would probably shoot Rose then and there. His hands dropped to his sides.

_Maybe she's faking, to draw him away from reinforcements?_

But the fear in her eyes looked real, and if she were faking, she would have winked at him or something.

_How did he overpower her?_

Rose was unique in their group in that she could use the powers of the monsters she summoned, without actually summoning the monsters. This came in handy when the group needed a distraction (she would simply incinerate or flood an important building) or protection from enemies (she could conjure up a wall of whatever was necessary to block any attack thrown at them).

_This man must be a truly terrifying warrior, to be able to take Rose as a hostage._

The man spoke again. "Now then, I think that this little raid of yours should end right here. Call your friends, tell them to surrender, and I'll consider sparing the girl's life."

"He wants to kill you, Star! Don't worry about me, just get out of here!" screamed Rose.

_Damn it, what do I do now?

* * *

_**A/N: I hope you guys liked Chapter 1. Future updates are probably not going to be this quick; I had already written most of this chapter by the time that I got the Prologue up. Please review.  
**


	3. Unforseen Problems

**A/N: Sorry I took a while to update, coming back from a break + sleep deprivation + extracurriculars = not much time to write.**

**I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5d's.**

**And now...on with the story!

* * *

**

**Chapter 2: Unforeseen Problems**

Part 1: Down a Bottomless Trap Hole

-Bottomless Trap Hole-

Normal Trap Card

Activate only when your opponent Summons a monster(s) with 1500 or more ATK. Destroy and remove from play the monster(s).

-Neo Domino City, Generator 1 Connecting Chamber, 10:50 A.M.-

_Damn it, what do I do now?_

Those were Star's thoughts as he assessed the bleak situation in front of him. One of his best friends in the world, Rose, was in front of him with a gun pressed into her temple. The thing that was even scarier was that she was somehow unable or unwilling to use her psychic powers to escape the situation. And now the hostage-taker, a Syndicate Security officer, was demanding that he order his friends to surrender, while she kept telling him to leave her behind and escape with the others.

The Security officer cocked his head in mock puzzlement as he studied Star.

"Need a little time to think? Well then, I guess I'll—" He stopped as he got a message on his radio. While keeping the gun pointed at Rose's head, he hooked the radio up to an earpiece with his other hand and listened to the message.

As he listened, his grin grew wider and wider.

_I do not have a good feeling about this._

The officer looked at Star, saying, "Why don't you call your friends on those communicators you carry? Start with the green-haired boy. And put it on speaker. I think that we'll all be rather interested in what they have to say."

-Warehouse Tunnel, 10:45 A.M.-

The three pairs split off on their own paths at the end of the tunnel. Prime, as his way of trying to deal with the importance of this mission, was trying his hardest to annoy the King.

"We call you the King, but in front of Star, you're just a commoner!" taunted Prime. He tried to dance out of the way of King's retaliatory strike, but the older boy was too fast for him. He picked Prime up and held him a few inches from his face, still walking.

"You little _brat._ Insult me like that again and see what happens. I dare you," snarled the King.

Prime gulped. "I…don't think that will be necessary, please put me down?"

Fortunately for Prime, they had reached the connecting chamber to the second generator during that little exchange. Unlike the first, this generator did not have any switches to pull to gain entry.

The King dropped Prime on the ground in front of the chamber entrance. As they entered, the boy did a 360 spin, marveling at the sheer size of the connecting chamber.

As they got closer to the generator room, the green-haired boy started to relax.

"This is almost too easy. Oh well, why am I complaining?" said Prime.

A second later, they found themselves surrounded by about 10 Securities, who had emerged from hidden trapdoors in the floor.

Apparently the word "complaining" had been the cue to spring their trap.

Prime was quick to react. He pulled out a white stone chip and started chanting.

"Docking strength with power to protect world peace! Envoy of love and justice, Power Tool Dragon!"

-Power Tool Dragon-

EARTH Attribute, Level 7, Machine-Type Synchro Effect Monster

1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner mosnters  
Once per turn, during your Main Phase, you can select 3 Equip Spell Cards from your Deck, have your opponent pick one of them at random, and add it to your hand. Return the remaining cards to your Deck. If this card would be destroyed while equipped with an Equip Spell Card, you can send that card to the Graveyard instead.

Above his head appeared a huge, golden, robotic _thing_ with 4 metallic wings, a giant screwdriver attached to its left arm, and what looked like a weird cross between a stapler and a comb attached to its right arm.

The officers looked up in shock. Usually, when summoning a Synchro monster, you had to tune together two more monsters that you had summoned. You didn't need to wait for your opponent to summon a monster, but the process was still time-consuming and easy to stop. How could this _boy_ have the power necessary to summon Synchro monsters without Tuning?

As the Securities backed off as one, Prime shouted, "Go, Power Tool Dragon! Use your ability! Call to Arms!"

The dragon nodded at him, and then it spread its arms and gave off a blue glow. Suddenly, all of the guns in the room, except for Jack's and Prime's, flew out of their holsters and came together in front of Power Tool Dragon.

Then Prime yelled, "Show them what you can do, Power Tool Dragon! Power Break!"

The guns in front of the dragon started spinning, faster and faster. They crackled with blue electricity, then, they started _melting_ into each other. The metallic mass of what used to be firearms split into two, and then eventually resolved into a red circular saw and a green drill, which attached themselves to the dragon's arms in place of its original equipment.

-Double Tool C&D-

Equip Spell Card

Equip only to a "Power Tool Dragon" or Level 4 or higher Machine-Type "Morphtronic" monster you control. While equipped: ● During your turn: It gains 1000 ATK. If it attacks, any effects of the attack target that activate or apply on the field are negated during that Battle Phase. ● During your opponent's turn: Your opponent cannot select a monster other than the equipped monster as an attack target. An opponent's monster that battles the equipped monster is destroyed at the end of the Damage Step.

The King eyed Prime approvingly. _For all of his shortcomings, he has grown up a lot. Of course, he's not better then I, the King!_

Deciding that he was not going to be left out of this party, the blond boy pulled out a white summon stone of his own.

"The ruler's heartbeats will now file through here! Take witness to its creation-shaking power! My very soul, Red Dragon Archfiend!"

-Red Dragon Archfiend-

DARK Attribute, Level 8, Dragon-Type Synchro Effect Monster

1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner monsters  
If this card attacks a Defense Position monster your opponent controls, destroy all Defense Position monsters your opponent controls after damage calculation. During your End Phase, destroy all other monsters you control that did not declare an attack this turn.

A menacing-looking, red and black dragon appeared over the King's head. The Securities were amazed. First the boy, and now this guy were skipping Tuning their monsters. They must be immensely powerful.

Of course, when used in the right way, technology can give anyone immense power at any time. All of the Securities put their hands behind their backs, flipping a switch on the wristbands that they wore. Immediately, the officers felt a rush of power. Using the power of these wristbands, even the weakest warriors could Synchro Summon without Tuning.

They all pulled out copies of the same summon stone. As one, they raised the stones above their heads, shouting,

"Unsheathe your sword! Legendary Six Samurai – Shi En!"

-Legendary Six Samurai – Shi En-

DARK Attribute, Level 5, Warrior-Type Synchro Effect Monster

1 Warrior-Type Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner "Six Samurai" monsters  
Once per turn, when your opponent activates a Spell/Trap Card, you can negate its activation and destroy it. If this face-up card on the field would be destroyed, you can destroy another face-up "Six Samurai" monster you control instead.

The King laughed derisively. "Do you really think that you Security pushovers could ever hope to defeat _me_? I have enough willpower to take out all of you without batting an eye."

"Don't forget about me!" shouted Prime.

Each Security grinned identically. They simply ordered their monsters to attack.

Four minutes later, it was all over. Both Red Dragon Archfiend and Power Tool Dragon had been sent back to where they came from. The King had passed out under the onslaught, and Prime was only conscious because the officers couldn't bring themselves to attack a 12-year-old boy at full force. One of them radioed in a report to their commanding officer, while Prime looked at the unconscious body of his friend in shock. He couldn't believe that they had been defeated so _easily_. Tears formed in his eyes, but he struggled to keep them from falling as he realized something.

_Wait…If they got us, what happened to Angel? Oh man, I gotta contact her quick, but they'll attack me if I try to get to my communicator…_

The aforementioned communicator rang at that precise moment.

The Security officer in charge motioned for him to answer it. Prime picked it up, noticed who it was, and tried to inject some of his usual spirit into his voice. "Hey, Star, where's Angel?"

"I don't know, I haven't gotten into contact with her yet…Sorry." There was a short pause. "…Prime, how's your mission going?"

"Well, we walked into a trap, and now the King is passed out, Power Tool Dragon is gone, and I'm surrounded by 10 Securities with Shi Ens, but other than that, I'm fine." His brave attempt at his usual good spirits failed miserably as he started to lose the battle against his tears.

Star was astounded. First Rose, now Prime and the King…How had the Securities become so strong in such a short time?

He was snapped back to reality when Prime said, "I guess we won't be seeing you for a while, Star…Don't forget to look after Angel for me…"

Prime cut off the link, tears finally running down his face, as a couple of officers walked over to handcuff him and carry both him and the unconscious King off to their detention cells.

* * *

Part 2: Mystery

-New Domino City, at the Garage, 11:00 A.M.-

Without Akiza there to scare them into being nice to each other, Jack and Crow had resumed their earlier argument. Leo had taken the opportunity to try to crack Yusei's password while Crow was preoccupied. So far, he had had no success. Luna watched the entire scene, shaking her head in disapproval.

"Leo, the entire point of a password is that it's not supposed to be found out," she said.

"I've almost got it this time, though!" said Leo.

"How can you tell? There aren't any hints and it displays the same message whenever you get it wrong."

"I just know, okay?"

"If you say so…"

They were interrupted by the sound of a Duel Runner pulling up in front of the garage.

"Is it Yusei?" asked Leo excitedly. "Finally! Now I can see what's on this flash drive!"

Jack and Crow stopped arguing, for fear that Akiza would find them fighting.

They didn't want to think about what would happen if _that_ occurred.

Luna tilted her head critically. "It can't be them," she said. "I'm only hearing one runner."

"Do you think something happened?" asked Crow worriedly.

Someone knocked on the door.

Jack let Officer Trudge into the garage. "What's going on, Trudge? Why are you here?"

The Sector Security officer looked like he had seen a ghost—which in fact, he thought he had.

"He's not dead," muttered Trudge.

"Who?" asked Crow.

"Sayer. Somehow, Sayer's returned from the dead."

"WHAT?" said the other Signers simultaneously. There was a general uproar that ended when Trudge gestured for silence. They gathered around him as he told his unbelievable story…

"So Yusei, Akiza, and Sayer were all stabbed by D.D. Warriors, and then they all disappeared? Are you sure you're not imagining things?" asked Jack skeptically.

"Do you really think he would lie, Jack?" replied Crow scornfully. "What I'm worried about is what happened. Sayer can materialize monsters. If we knew D.D. Warrior's effect, maybe we could figure out what happened."

"Ooh, ooh, I know!" shouted Leo. "We learned about the whole D.D. series of cards the other day in school! Now D.D. Warrior…um…well…I forgot what he does…"

Luna shook her head. "Leo…Okay, guys, so D.D. stands for Different Dimension. All D.D. cards have something to do with removing cards from play. D.D. Warrior, when it battles a monster, will remove itself and the monster it battled from play." A thought struck her. "Wait…does this mean that they all got sent to a different dimension?" Everyone looked at her in shock.

"But what would Sayer gain by sending them all to another dimension?" Crow wondered, confused.

"Who knows?" asked Trudge.

Luna said, "There's another thing. The only reason that Akiza came here in the first place was because she wanted to deliver a package to Yusei, which contained a flash drive. The thing is, it had been sent to her house, with instructions that said to give it to him. Isn't that awfully convenient?"

Crow muttered, "I don't know, she probably would have found some reason to come over anyway…"

Trudge didn't hear him. "Where is this flash drive?"

Luna walked up to the computer table and picked it up. "Here it—aah!" She dropped the flash drive in shock.

"What's wrong, Luna?" asked Leo, concerned.

"I don't know, this flash drive just feels…_wrong_, somehow…" said Luna.

"Then it's all the more important that we open it," decided Trudge. "Have you done that yet?"

Jack said, "Well, this little _brat_"—he pointed at Leo—"came in right before Yusei left, and because of him, Yusei decided to set a password for his account. Now, this flash drive needs administrator access to open, but Yusei is the only administrator, and as I said before, _he set a password. Because of this brat._"

"Are you done ranting?" asked Crow, irritated. "Because if you are, I think that we need to start trying to crack Yusei's password, as fast as we can. Personally, I'm putting my money on 'shootingswordfish'."

* * *

Part 3: Realization

-Neo Domino City, Generator 3 Connecting Chamber, 10:47 A.M.-

Raven and Angel had had the same trap sprung on them that the King and Prime had gone through. Also like the other pair, they weren't going down without a fight.

"Rise above, Blackwing – Silverwind the Ascendant!"

"The holy light of protection, shine now and become eternal life! A regal birth, Ancient Fairy Dragon!"

-Blackwing – Silverwind the Ascendant-

DARK Attribute, Level 8, Winged-Beast-Type Synchro Effect Monster

1 "Blackwing" Tuner Monster + 2 or more non-Tuner monsters  
When this card is Synchro Summoned, you can select and destroy up to 2 face-up monsters on the field with DEF lower than this card's ATK. You cannot conduct your Battle Phase the turn you activate this effect. The next time a "Blackwing" monster you control would be destroyed by battle during your opponent's turn, it is not destroyed; this effect only happens once.

-Ancient Fairy Dragon-

LIGHT Attribute, Level 7, Dragon-Type Synchro Effect Monster

1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner Monsters  
Once per turn, you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower monster from your hand. You cannot conduct your Battle Phase the turn you activate this effect. Once per turn, you can destroy a Field Spell Card. If you do, gain 1000 Life Points, and you can add 1 Field Spell Card from your Deck to your hand.

All of the Securities activated their wristbands and called forth Shi En, except for one. This officer pulled out a slightly different stone.

"Deliver justice, Stygian Sergeants!"

-Stygian Sergeants-

DARK Attribute, Level 5, Fiend-Type Synchro Effect Monster

1 Fiend-Type Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner monsters  
When this card destroys an opponent's monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard, it can gain 800 ATK (until the end of the Battle Phase) and attack once again in a row.

A two-headed, bat-winged monster riding on a motorcycle materialized in front of that particular officer.

When the other Securities ordered their monsters to attack, this officer was the once again the odd man out.

He looked at the two Signers and thought, _Hardened criminals, murderers and traitors, I can deal with. But _kids_? I can't do this._

The Syndicate was strict, however, and insubordination was equivalent to a death sentence. So when he ordered his monster to attack, he nervously traced a circular design with his finger on the right side of his belt.

Stygian Sergeants shared his apprehension, so the monster was relieved when he saw the design that his master had traced out. He eagerly joined in the attack.

Or at least, he seemed to.

Ushio had ordered him to attack. The circle traced on his belt, a code that they had come up with a long time ago, told him to miss.

After the battle, Raven was kneeling beside Angel, who was lying unconscious on the floor. He thought, _The Securities have won, so why aren't they hauling us off to jail?_

His answer came in the form of Angel's ringing communicator. It was Star. The head officer told him to answer it.

He opened the communicator apprehensively.

"Yo, Star, what's going on at your end?" asked Raven, trying to sound upbeat.

"Raven, why do you have Angel's communicator?" asked Star, fearing the worst.

"Don't worry, Star, she's just unconscious right now. We've both been defeated, our monsters are gone, I can barely stand, and there's a pair of handcuffs with my name on it on the belt of this handsome guy in front of me."

Star stood there silently as he processed the information.

"Star, you there?" asked Raven.

Star nodded, feeling numb. "Yeah, I am."

"Well, I guess this is it for now, buddy. I hope you and Rose manage to get out okay." Raven smiled sadly as he closed the link and dropped the communicator.

His smile widened a little as he realized that this situation might just be salvageable after all.

There were small shards of rock left over from the furious battle. He went over to Angel's unconscious form and picked her up gently, stumbling a bit as he slipped on the rocks. As he passed the girl to a Security officer, he smiled inwardly.

_You know, Star, I think that I'm going to see you sooner than you think._

-Generator 1 Connecting Chamber, 10:50 A.M.-

Star was still in shock after his conversations with Prime and Raven.

In one short day, his entire world had come crashing down.

_They took my parents…now they want my friends…when will they ever be satisfied?_

And at that moment, it all hit him in a single, blinding moment of clarity.

_This was a trap._

The guards at their usual raiding entrance had been tripled in order to divert them into the warehouse tunnel, which had probably been watched. They saw which pairs went down which tunnels, positioned their men accordingly. The officers who had captured the other two pairs had, no doubt, been equipped with some kind of amplifier—they would have never been able to defeat the Signers otherwise. They had also prepared a special surprise for him and Rose, which explained why she couldn't use her psychic powers.

_But why did the guard tell me to make my friends surrender when he knew they were going to be caught anyway?_ He answered his own question. _The Securities wanted to destroy their faith in me. If I had sold them out, even if we did escape, they would have hated me. The greatest threat to the Securities would be splintered and demoralized. Easy pickings._ The sheer scope of the Syndicate's plot staggered him. That thought didn't last long, however, for it was soon replaced with self-doubt.

_It's all my fault…how could I have been so blind? Now, because of me, everyone is on their way to prison, they might be executed…because of my stupidity._

He was brought back to reality when the Security officer cleared his throat. "That was so _touching_ that I think I'm going to cry!" he said mockingly. Star clenched his fists. "Now let's get to business. I think that ordering your friends to surrender would be a bit redundant, don't you? So instead, here's what I want you to do. You see that door behind me? The one that leads to the generator? You're going to enter it and keep walking until you reach the generator, okay? Then I'll let her go."

_What is he trying to pull?_ Star tried to clear his mind of his intense fury and began to think furiously, searching for a way for him and Rose to get out of this situation.

"I'm waiting…" said the officer.

Seeing no other option, Star started walking.

As he passed them, he looked up at the officer, trying to send all of his hatred and rage through that glare.

The Security simply looked back at him in amusement, flipping the gun around his finger using the trigger guard.

He looked down at Rose and seemed to become another person. His eyes softened, his face colored up slightly, and despite the circumstances, he almost smiled. He stared into her eyes, blue into brown, savoring the moment even though their situation was abysmal. Her earlier fear had drained away, replaced by red-hot determination. He found it…cute.

_Reality check, Star,_ he thought. _You are in the middle of a life-and-death situation. This is definitely not the time to be looking at her like that. _He furrowed his eyebrows suddenly, noticing something. _Since when does she wear a clear plastic choker? _He dismissed this thought. He could worry about that later, assuming that there was a later._  
_

An idea struck him. He flicked his gaze up to her black hair curler, then back down to her eyes. His eyes seemed to say, _Any chance that'll work?_

Her head moved a fraction of an inch to either side. _Sorry._

_No problem._ As he walked on, he wondered for a moment how they could have communicated so well using only their eyes.

Rose looked at Star's back as he walked down the tunnel. The slight smile that was on her face changed to an annoyed look as the guard gave her a slight push to get her moving.

_I can walk, thanks._

Her facial expression shifted again. _Wait a second._

She walked in front of the officer, cognizant of her surroundings but lost in thought at the same time. Possibilities swirled through her mind, all centering on a trick that was very literally "up her sleeve".

She smiled inwardly, realizing that their situation wasn't as bleak as she had thought. _I might only get one chance to turn this around. I'd better not ruin it.

* * *

_

Part 4: Dimensional Fissure

-Dimensional Fissure-

Continuous Spell Card

Any monster sent to the Graveyard is removed from play instead.

-?-

Yusei had taken a trip through a wormhole before, when he, Sherry, and Bruno had been trapped and sent off in a shuttle by the director of the Momentum Express Development Organization.

That time, the dimensional tunnel had looked like a bunch of intertwined green fibers. This time, it just looked like an ominous, all-consuming purple void.

_Looks like the place got redecorated, huh? I actually preferred the green version._

Another difference from his previous trip was that he had been riding in a shuttle, with its own artificial gravity. In this trip, he was feeling extremely weird, like he was weightless but still falling.

The purple designs of the void had been interesting, but his eyes tired of that after a while. He closed his eyes for a bit, and when he reopened them, the landscape that he was falling through had changed.

He was falling through a hall of mirrors.

The first thing that he saw was himself. He panned up from his brown boots, up his black shirt, to his face, where he stopped, shocked. He touched his right cheek in disbelief.

The knifing that the D.D. Warrior had given him had scarred him with a mark that was symmetrical to his criminal mark.

_You've gotta be kidding…_

The scene shifted to a montage of scenes from his life. Growing up in the Satellite, gathering cards, learning to fight, finding Stardust Dragon under a dumpster, building his Duel Runner…meeting Akiza.

_My life is flashing before my eyes…does this mean I'm going to die? I can't! I have to see her at least once!_

He was a little surprised at the vehemence of this last thought.

The hall of mirrors had one more surprise for him. It displayed the very girl he was thinking about. She was looking at him, smiling, which made him blush furiously.

_This new tunnel might not be all that bad, actually...  
_

Her image started reaching out a hand for him. He reached back. Their fingertips were about to meet…

Then the mirrors shattered, the illusion flickered and died, and Yusei let the darkness take him.

Akiza, being sent through the wormhole first, landed first, in the exact same alley that Sayer had attacked her and Yusei in.

The dimensional tunnel was unstable, so by the time Yusei landed, the tunnel's exit had shifted to a similar-looking alley on the other side of the Satellite.

Sayer had taken multiple trips through the dimensional fissure, and he had figured out how to twist the wormhole in order to choose his landing position. He considered landing where Akiza had, just to see her reaction.

Sighing, he said to himself, "Well, it wouldn't be good to deviate from the plan when it's in such early stages, is it? I can wait."

He altered the tunnel to take him to his intended destination, which was the tallest building in Neo Domino City.

It was the headquarters of the Syndicate—Syn Tower.

* * *

**A/N: That's all for chapter 2. I'm hoping to get chapter 3 up more quickly than this one.**

**In the next chapter, Star and Rose are still trapped in the Security headquarters. What is the motive of the Securities officer? Why is Rose unable to use her powers? And how will they get out of this? Meanwhile, Yusei, Akiza, and Sayer have just landed in Star's dimension. What's the connection between Sayer and the Syndicate? Will Yusei and Akiza find each other? Where do Star and Rose come into the equation, if they even do at all? Find out all of this and more in Chapter 3.  
**


	4. Opening Gambits

**A/N: Finally finished chapter 3, sorry for the wait.**

**I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh 5d's.**

**And so the story continues...  
**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 3: Opening Gambits**

In chess, a gambit is an opening in which the player sacrifices a pawn or piece in order to gain an advantage.

* * *

Part 1: Reversal

-Neo Domino City, Generator 1 Connecting Hallway, 10:51 A.M.-

Star walked down the hallway, thinking furiously. His eyes swept over every inch of the corridor, trying to find something he could use to escape the situation that he was in. So far, he had found nothing. He walked as slowly as possible, trying to delay the moment when he arrived at the generator for as long as possible.

It wasn't working.

The Security officer behind him said scornfully, "I know what you're up to. You want to stall and see if someone will come to rescue you? Well, boy, they've already been captured. They're probably on their way to detention cells right now. So there isn't gonna be a knight in shining armor, crashing through the walls to save you. The sooner you accept that, the better off you'll be. Now, unless you want me to make a hole in your girlfriend's head, you'd better hurry up." He punctuated this little speech by pulling on Rose's hair, hard, causing an involuntary cry of pain.

Star gritted his teeth and picked up the pace.

Rose was also thinking hard. When the guard had pushed her earlier, a weight inside her right sleeve had reminded her of the item that she carried there. For a moment, she was happy that she had found something that could be used against the officer. A moment later, however, she was struck by a sudden thought.

_Am I becoming so reliant on my psychic powers that I can't think of any alternatives to using them?_

That thought scared her.

She put it out of her mind, telling herself to focus on the matter at hand. If she could get the thing in her hands, she could take him out. If that didn't work, she could at least distract him long enough for Star to do something.

Of course, the problem was pulling the item out without the guard noticing. While wearing handcuffs.

She had an idea, but first she wanted to make sure that Star would be ready when it was time to act. Rose stared at the back of his head for as long as she could, willing him to look at her.

Star turned around to see how Rose was holding up when he met her gaze. Their eyes seemed to convey unspoken messages. This nonverbal communication continued up until Rose tripped.

Which was odd, considering that the floor was clear of obstructions that she could have tripped on.

She went down, flailing her legs in such a way that the guard behind her fell too. He landed on top of her, knocking the wind out of her, then rolled off.

_Got it._

The officer got up quickly, pulling Rose by her hair to make her stand too. Star clenched his fists at that, but didn't make a move. As she stood, he caught a momentary flash of silver.

The guard was irritated at this girl for making him fall. Luckily the boy hadn't tried anything while they had been on the ground.

For some reason, when they got up, the girl's sleeve was pulled over her hands so that he couldn't see them. He figured that it had happened when they fell and that it would make no difference.

They had walked a few more meters when the Rose suddenly stopped and pushed up her sleeve, revealing her hidden item for a moment.

It was a knife. The hilt was green, with intertwined roses spiraling around it, while the double-edged blade was pure steel. The weapon had been a gift from Star a few years ago, and she had sewn the sleeve holster into every shirt that she owned soon after, including the stolen guard uniform.

Unable to bring her arms up because of the handcuffs, she thrust her hands straight backward. The guard felt a sudden, stinging pain on the inside of his thigh, uncomfortably close to his…vital organs. He jumped backward, hands flying down to the affected area. Luckily he hadn't been seriously injured, but it had been close.

Star heard the commotion and turned around. Rose was about to turn to try and finish him, but something in Star's eyes told her that it would be a better idea to drop to the ground, which she did.

_Is he planning to—_"Don't kill him, Star!" she cried.

A black shape hurtled past her. She turned around and watched, amazed, as Star jumped and delivered a powerful flying punch to the guard's face. The man flew backward several feet because of the impact. He landed hard on his side, unconscious, as his gun flew out of his hand.

_Ouch._

Star rifled through the guard's pockets, finally pulling out a set of keys. He went over to Rose and unlocked her handcuffs.

"Are you okay?" Star asked, turning to give her a hand. He studied her closely with that piercing gaze of his, making her blush furiously.

"Yeah, I think so," she said, taking his hand.

He was quiet for a few seconds, then said, "Let's talk to this fine gentleman on the floor here, see what he has to say about this."

They sat the officer up against the wall and pulled out their guns. As they pointed them at him, Star slapped his face to wake him up.

Star said, "We have some questions for you. Answer them truthfully. As you can see, there are two of us and one of you, so if you try to get one of us, the other will shoot you, so it's really in your best interest to sit tight." The guard scowled but said nothing.

"First question: Why did you want to take us to the generator room?" asked Rose.

He paused for a while, then replied, "It was the fastest way to the holding cells from the connecting chamber. There's a passage from that room straight to the prison level."

They looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. "If that's true, we could—" Rose began, but Star cut her off with a nod.

Star picked up the questioning. "Why can't Rose use her powers?"

"You're smart kids, can't you figure it out for yourselves?" the officer said, smirking.

Star stuck his pistol in the guard's face. The man's eyes crossed as he tried to focus on the barrel, fervently hoping that the boy wouldn't pull the trigger.

"Tell me."

"T-t-the plastic band around her neck is an inhibitor, it seals up any powers that a person has."

"See how much easier that was?" asked Star, pulling back a bit. He turned to Rose. "Can I see your knife?"

"Don't scare people like that, Star," she scolded as she handed it to him, still keeping her gun pointed at the guard. He slowly slid the knife between the plastic and her neck—luckily it wasn't too tight—and sawed it off.

Rose suddenly felt a huge rush of energy. She reached out a hand toward the guard, and suddenly, vines burst from the walls and floors, anchoring him in a sitting position against the wall. She grinned. "That should keep him for a while. Let's go."

* * *

Part 2: Welcoming Committee

-Neo Domino City, Satellite, 10:53 A.M.-

Yusei opened his eyes and promptly closed them again as the sun shone directly on him. He rolled over and proceeded to open his eyes, slowly. As he got up, he noticed that he was lying in an alleyway that looked a lot like the one that Sayer had attacked him and Akiza in.

_Oh no, Akiza! I have to find her before Sayer does!_

With that goal in mind, he walked out of the alleyway. What he saw made him stop in shock.

He was in the Satellite.

_What?_ _I didn't get sent to another dimension after all?_

When he looked harder, however, he saw some subtle differences between his hometown and this version of the Satellite. The buildings here were even more wrecked then they had been under Goodwin, and the Daedalus Bridge had a giant red S on top of it.

_What weird place have I been sent to?_

Yusei started walking. As he went down the street, people reacted to him in one of two weird ways—either they would cross the street to avoid him or they would stare at him in admiration.

That seemed a rather odd way to act towards a person.

He saw a Securities officer walking towards him on the sidewalk. Everyone else on the street was going out of their way to avoid him. Weird. The officer spotted him, grinned, and walked up to him.

"What do you want?" asked Yusei.

"Today must be my lucky day! I get to capture the famous rebel Star! Now come quietly and I won't be forced to hurt you," said the guard.

"…What? Who's Star?"

"Don't play dumb, boy. Just put your hands out so I can cuff you. No? Have it your way, then." The officer suddenly pulled out a handheld electric stunner and advanced on Yusei menacingly.

"Wait, wait, what did I do?" said Yusei, hurriedly backing away from the man. He accidentally backed into an alley, and his motion suddenly stopped as he hit a wall.

_Great._

If he couldn't retreat, he would attack. Yusei breathed deeply, calling on the fighting skills that he had learned as a kid. He charged at the officer, who jabbed at him with the stunner. Yusei dodged the strike and knocked the guy out with a series of quick punches.

Oddly enough, this happened at the exact same time that Star punched the Security officer in the connecting hallway.

Yusei took the stunner out of the unconscious man's hand and ran through the back alleys of the Satellite, thinking as he went.

_Okay, so Sector Security is after someone who looks a lot like me, who is apparently some kind of famous rebel. I guess I should just lay low for a while and see if I can find any information about where Akiza is. I can't go to Martha's, I don't want her tangled up in this, if she exists in this place. So where should I go?_

He grinned as he realized the perfect place for him to stay.

A few minutes later, he had arrived at his destination: the abandoned building that had once been the headquarters of the Enforcers.

-Neo Domino City, Satellite, 10:51 A.M.-

Akiza sat up against the wall of the alley and quickly went through her deck. She had seen the D.D. Warrior give one of her cards to Sayer, and she wanted to find what the card was. He hadn't taken Black Rose Dragon, but she couldn't remember what card he did take.

_I can think about this more later. Right now, I need to find out where I am and find Yusei._

With her mind made up, she walked out of the alleyway and saw that she was in an almost-identical version of the Satellite, just as Yusei had.

She started walking. Unlike Yusei, she didn't get far.

A red-haired girl walked out of an alleyway across the street. A certain man who was walking by on the other side of the street saw her out of the corner of his eye. He walked on for a little, then did a double take as his eyes widened. He couldn't believe his luck.

_I've found her…I've finally found her._

He had been given a job: find and capture the Signers, alive if possible. The man who had delivered the job looked shady as all hell, but hey, money was money, and God only knew how much he needed it.

As he looked at the girl, he felt the familiar stirrings of rage deep within him. Starting from a couple of months before the incident when a deranged man—in a _suit of armor,_ of all things—had tried to blow up Syn Tower, he had been filled with an inexplicable hatred towards the red-haired girl whenever the topic of the freedom fighters had been brought up.

He had no idea why. But suddenly, she had become the only Signer that he wanted to concentrate on, if only to find out why he hated her so much.

_Anyway, if I pull this off, I can finally get to the bottom of this—and pick up a nice reward while I'm at it._

She turned right, walking towards the center of the Satellite. He followed.

Akiza was puzzled by people's reactions to her. Half of them would gaze at her in awe, while the other half would go to great lengths to avoid her. She sighed.

_It's almost like I was the Black Rose Witch again…_

Lost in thought, she didn't notice that she had walked into a deserted alleyway. She wasn't aware of the hulking bruiser who came up behind her, either.

Suddenly, she felt a huge pressure on her neck as a humongous arm started squeezing the life out of her. She bit down, hard, and was rewarded as the man yelled in pain. Her satisfaction was short-lived, however, as he doubled the pressure on her neck. She was looking at the world down a long tunnel as she struggled to force air into her lungs.

_Who's doing…this?_

She looked up with effort, and saw huge muscles, a spiked jacket…a pink Mohawk?

_Yusei…help…me…_

The darkness took her.

* * *

Part 3: Under Pressure

-Neo Domino City, Generator 1, 10:56 A.M.-

The generator was _huge._ About 4 stories tall, it supplied power to only one third of the Security headquarters. Star shook his head, thinking, _If they only use this for a third of the building, what are they doing that requires this much power?_

"How were we supposed to destroy this thing again?" asked Rose, wide-eyed.

Star smiled at her amazement. "It's simple. All we have to do is attack it, over and over."

"And how long will that take?"

"Not as long as you'd think. Remember, this thing is a machine, and every machine has one part that it can't function without. We find and hit that part, and it all comes crashing down."

"We'd better get started then…" She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. A strong wind blew around them, signifying that Rose was beginning to gather her powers.

Star backed away. He did _not _want to be anywhere near her when the inevitable blast occurred.

Rose opened her eyes. Instead of their usual brown, they were dark red.

She thrust one hand forward.

CRASH!

The bottom section of the generator developed cracks and shattered. The rest of the giant machine was about to fall on them, but it bounced off of an invisible shield that Rose had created above them. Star watched in awe as the entire structure came tumbling down.

_Yet another reason why I should never get on her bad side._

She swayed slightly, and in a flash, he was there for her to lean on. "You okay?"

"I guess I used too much power at once. I'll be fine in a few minutes." She looked up into his eyes, held his gaze for a few seconds, and looked away, blushing furiously. "So let's go. I'll recover on the way."

"Are you sure?" he asked, concerned.

She quickly got up, not looking at him, and started running towards the exit. "Come on, slowpoke, we have to rescue our friends."

_What was that about?_

As Rose ran down the hallway, her thoughts were swirling rapidly.

_Why am I suddenly getting so nervous around him?_

_He's a friend. A friend. Nothing more. Yeah, he's handsome, brave, smart, amazing—don't go there._

She stumbled but quickly righted herself. For some reason, her foot had seemed to sink into the ground for a second—_Oh boy._

WHAM

Rose skidded to a stop, turning to see that a heavy metal door had slammed shut behind her. She immediately identified the door as being made of a type of steel that was impregnable to any type of attack. She ran up to the door, shouting "Star! Are you all right?"

His voice was muffled by the door's bulk. "I'm fine, what about you?"

"I'm okay, what do we do now?"

There was a short pause. "I'm going to find another way—damn it!" Her heart nearly stopped as she heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot.

"Star!" she screamed.

"I'm fine, just a couple of rookie Securities, nothing to worry about," he said, his cocky grin evident even through a thick steel door. "Go on, rescue them while I take out these jokers." Another shot rang out.

She ran.

Star fought his way through quite a few Security guards, all the while looking for another route to the prison block. The problem with that plan was that the hallways that he kept finding were flooded with Security officers.

_Where the hell did these guys spring from all of a sudden?_

He kept running and suddenly found himself in the room with the destroyed generator.

_I'm back here again? _he thought, irritated, as he hurdled over the pieces of the generator while exchanging fire with the pursuing Security officers.

He ran past the guard who had taken Rose hostage—he was still immobilized by the vines—through the connecting chamber, and down the corridor towards the warehouse tunnel. For a brief moment, he contemplated leaving.

_Yeah, right._

He stumbled.

WHAM

Two steel doors had closed, one in front of him, one behind him.

_You've gotta be kidding._

He was completely cut off from the rest of the building. The only way he could go was back up the tunnel towards the car.

_I'll go in the car and find another way into the building._

Having made up his mind, he ran up the tunnel.

Rose was incredibly angry at herself for falling for such a simple trap. Of _course _there had been pressure pads on the floor, and of _course_ she had to be the one to step on it. Now she was separated from Star, who, from the sound of it, was fighting a bunch of armed Securities right about now.

She continued on, stumbling _again_, setting off a door behind her _again_—

This was _not _a good day for her.

A Security officer stepped out of a hidden niche in front of her and took aim with his pistol.

"Surrender now, or I'll shoot!" he shouted.

_I don't have time for this. _She didn't even bother pulling out her own weapon; instead she watched the guard's trigger finger as she sped toward him.

It twitched.

Rose threw herself to the side as the bullet screamed through the space where she had been a moment before. She had enough time to savor the shocked look on the guard's face before she kicked him in the side of the head, bringing him down. As he fell, she snatched the gun out of his hand and pulled out her own pistol, grinning fiercely. _Double the firepower, double the pain, double the fun._

She ran on, blasting Securities out of her way with both guns as she went. _I'm coming, guys.

* * *

_

Part 4: Into the Inferno

**Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.**

**-**Dante Alighieri, _The Divine Comedy_

-Neo Domino City, Detention Block D, 10:56 A.M.-

The entrance to the Securities prison had an ominous quote carved into the stone frame: _Abandon all hope, ye who enter here._

This inscription very accurately described the feelings of Raven and Angel as they were being checked in at the gates. Angel had woken up very quickly, considering that she had been attacked by 9 Shi Ens and a Stygian Sergeants.

"Raven? Isn't that a girl's name?" snickered the Securities officer in charge of placing the prisoners.

The boy in question shot the offender a look.

_I swear, one more joke about that and I'll—_

That thought was cut off when the King and Prime walked in, being led by two other officers. Raven's heart sank.

_You've gotta be kidding…what happened to Star and Rose, then?_

The King started trading the usual insults with Raven, trying to lighten the mood for the younger Signers. As usual, it would have come to blows, but this time, the two were held up by the cuffs around their wrists and the officers behind them.

It was very entertaining.

Raven used his fight with the King as cover to look around the room surreptitiously. A few hallways, that ominous gate…but there were no air vents or other small openings that he could see.

_Escaping is going to be harder than I thought…_

The four of them finally walked through the gates to the cells.

"Put them in cells DI-3354 to DI-3357," said a bored-looking officer as the entrance doors shut behind them. Raven heard a muffled thud.

_What was that?_

Rose was coming up on the prison block when she saw Raven, the King, and the twins being marched through a huge entrance. She didn't want to attract attention, so she stayed quiet and tried to follow them in.

The doors started closing.

…_This is getting ridiculous._

She started running, but the doors had closed by the time she got there. By that time, she was going too fast to stop, so she slammed into the doors full force.

_Damn it!_

She quickly picked herself up and called Star on her communicator. He answered immediately. "Rose, did you find them?"

"I did, they're in the prison block, but the doors closed before I could get inside."

"Damn it!" he exclaimed, echoing her thoughts.

"We should get as far away from here as we can and come up with a better plan. Let's meet up at that place." Star was silent for a while. "Star?"

He sounded resigned as he finally said "I'll see you there."

Rose took one final look at the inscription on the arch.

_Abandon all hope._

_Like hell I will._

-Neo Domino City, Syn Tower, 10:56 A.M.-

In the top floor of the tower, a secret gathering was taking place. There were only three people attending: an old man with a mask covering his mouth and a long white beard, another person hidden in shadow, and Sayer. They were expecting a fourth, but he was running very late.

Sayer and the old man were playing chess while waiting for their final partner to arrive. A blond man with square-framed glasses burst through the door.

"Why are you late, Smith?" asked the shadowed man in a neutral tone.

Smith replied, "There's an incident going on at Security headquarters, I just got the report. Apparently the _Signers_"—he used the word like it was a curse—"have broken in with unknown motives. However, four of the six have been apprehended and are probably on their way to cells right now."

"And which two are left?" asked the old man in a slow, deep voice.

"The leader and the red-haired girl. I'm ready to send my men to seal off the perimeter, trap them—"

"No. Let them go," said Sayer firmly.

"What? They're the two biggest threats to us left, it would be stupid to let them go free!"

"Sometimes, the most obvious action isn't the best one," said the shadowed man.

Sayer added, "It's like a chess game. You have to lose a piece—" He moved his queen up and the old man captured it. Sayer's hand shot out almost immediately to move his bishop a few spaces. "Checkmate—to reap far greater rewards. We're losing the ability to take out two of our worst enemies at the moment, but in exchange, we have a chance to control everything. If we let them go, our plans will come to pass eventually. Rematch, Jose?"

"No, I'll start preparations for the next phase of the plan." Jose got up from the table and walked out of the same entrance that Smith had just entered. The shadowed man gestured for Smith to make his exit as well.

When they were alone in the room, Sayer turned towards the shadowed man. "Are you sure this will work? I know what you're trying to do in theory, but it relies way too much on chance for my liking."

"It will work. Trust me."

Sayer chuckled. "How could I not trust myself? You crack me up sometimes…Divine."

* * *

**A/N: Weren't expecting that, were you? This _is _a dimension-jumping fic, there are going to be some parallels.**

**I'm going to use the English names for the people in Yusei's world and Japanese names for Star's world. Also, Star and Rose are going to meet Yusei and Akiza next chapter, but it's not going to be smooth sailing. Things are about to get a _lot _more complicated...  
**


	5. First Impressions

**A/N: Sorry about taking such a long time to update. AP exams are a little more than a month away and my teachers and my parents are freaking out like it's the end of the world.**

***sigh***

**To dbzgtfan2004, Mic-RNOL-Mik, and Star-Rose Lover, thank you for your kind reviews.  
**

**I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5d's.**

**And the story marches on.  
**

**

* * *

****Chapter 4: First Impressions**

Part 1: Déjà Vu

-Neo Domino City, Abandoned Warehouse, 11:00 A.M.-

"I'll see you there," said Star as he shut down his communicator. He sped out of the warehouse and into his bright red car, which miraculously had not been impounded by Security. He started the engine and headed toward the Daedalus Bridge.

_Rose said she wanted to meet me in 'that place', as far from Security headquarters as possible. _

That could only mean one location.

He was almost at the Daedalus Bridge when he saw the truck.

It was a normal, unmarked, white 18-wheeler, pulled over on the opposite side of the road. The driver seemed to be making a call. There was nothing suspicious about it whatsoever. _So why am I getting a weird feeling about this?_

He decided to stake out the truck for a while—_I'll call her up later and explain—_so he made a U-turn and stopped about 100 meters behind it.

After a few minutes, he could hear a faint banging sound.

_What is that?_

The driver had apparently heard it, too, as he exited the cab and went around the back. As the man's gaze swept over the car, Star hurriedly leaned back and pretended that he was sleeping. He took a look at him—_A pink Mohawk? Haha._—and waited to see what would happen next. _If I'm lucky,_ he thought, _this suspicion is just some trick that my mind is trying to play on me._

Today wasn't his lucky day.

A

_She was walking through a garden. It was a rather weird garden; she was walking right next to a mirror that reflected her part of the garden back at her. She looked at herself in the mirror and noticed that her reflection was wearing a black curler instead of her usual silver. She smiled as her image did too, seeing the beautiful flowers spread out behind her._

_As she looked in the mirror, she saw something amiss in the background. The plants were burning, being consumed by towering red, blue, yellow flames. The fire advanced quickly, and in no time it had almost destroyed the entire garden. She screamed, trying to escape, but there was nowhere to go. She pressed her back against the mirror. As she burned, she could hear a cold, clear laugh that was oddly familiar to her, but it sounded like there were two of them._

"_No, it can't be—" she thought, before she disappeared into the flames._

Akiza woke up, breathing heavily as her eyes adjusted to her new environment.

_What was that dream just now? I have the feeling that something's going to happen…wait, where am I?_

She couldn't see anything, but she felt a kind of rumble under her. It reminded her of riding in that truck with Yusei after he had been kidnapped—_I was kidnapped by that guy! So now I'm in the back of a truck?_

Thankfully, her kidnapper hadn't taken her duel disk or her deck, although they would be of little use to her without her powers.

Her arm started burning. She rolled up her sleeve to reveal her mark, which wasn't glowing its usual red. Instead, it was a clear, bright gold. _What's happening? My mark's never acted like this before._

She started banging on the side of the truck, yelling for the driver to hear her, but the noise of the truck dwarfed the sounds that she made, so she gave up on that after a while.

After some time—her sense of time was thrown off by being in the back of the truck—it finally stopped. Akiza took the opportunity to resume banging on the wall until the door opened.

Her captor was standing there, casually keeping one of his hands inside his jacket. At the point where his hand was, she saw a gun-shaped protrusion. All motion ceased immediately.

"Now, that's better. Why don't you stay that way for the rest of the trip?" sneered the man. She was only half paying attention to his words, her mind occupied with remembering the faint memory that stirred within her mind as a result of seeing her kidnapper.

"Next time I catch you playing a stupid trick like that…well, you don't want to know what will happen." He closed the door. Akiza breathed in and out slowly.

She _really _hoped that the owner of that red car hadn't been sleeping.

S

Star was puzzled. _How the hell did Rose get kidnapped for the second time in an hour? And when did she change?_

He sighed, considering his options. He could have rushed at them when the driver opened the door, but he didn't know if the kidnapper had an accomplice. If he waited until the man started driving again, he could rescue her and then take out her captor without worrying about any dirty tricks he or any helpers could pull. Besides, the man wouldn't do anything to her in broad daylight.

This logic didn't stop him from keeping his gun close at hand.

The truck drove away and Star followed. The two eventually ended up on a winding, deserted road that went up the coastline of the city.

_This is as good a time as any,_ thought Star, and lowered the sunroof of the car.

_Not too powerful, don't want to blast her away with the truck._ With that in mind, he selected a summon stone from his pocket. "Come on out, Speed Warrior!"

-Speed Warrior-

WIND Attribute, Level 2, Warrior-Type Effect Monster

During the Battle Phase of the turn you Normal Summon this card, you can double its original ATK until the end of the Battle Phase.

An armor-encased warrior with a blue visor appeared, skating on the road next to his car.

"Alright, Speed Warrior, power up! Speed Boost!" A silvery glow washed over the monster, making him visibly stronger. "Now attack the doors! Sonic Edge!" Speed Warrior skated toward the truck, jumped, and performed a flashy spin kick that left a huge dent.

"Again!" As Speed Warrior continued his relentless assault, the driver stuck his arm out of the window and fired blindly at his pursuer. A near miss crashed through the windshield, showering him with broken glass as he raised his hands to protect his head.

_Better make it snappy, my car can't take much more of this._

A_  
_

A dent suddenly appeared in the door in front of Akiza, throwing her off balance.

_What was that?_

More dents appeared around the first. The doors were being forced farther and farther open until she could see outside.

She stared at her rescuer in blank-eyed shock.

"Hey, did someone in there order a rescue?" asked the raven-haired boy, grinning.

_Yusei has psychic powers?_ Her legs suddenly stopped supporting her as the shock at this latest discovery spread throughout her body. His blue eyes filled with concern as she dropped to her knees.

A shot rang out. The boy ducked as Akiza held her breath for a moment, fearing that he'd been hit. He hadn't, luckily, although it had been a close shave.

The next shot hit the front right tire.

S

"Yusei,"—_Wait, why is she calling me Yusei?_—"get in here before the car goes through the guard rail!" she yelled. He pressed some buttons on the dashboard—that sequence commanded the car to go to a certain safehouse—as she got back up advanced toward the edge of the truck.

He jumped and managed to reach her outstretched hand. With a huge effort, she pulled him into the truck, where they lay next to each other, panting. Beneath them, the rumbling stopped.

"Gives you a sense of déjà vu, doesn't it, Yusei?" asked Akiza lightly as she finally pulled him up.

Star looked at her weirdly. "Why are you calling me that, Rose?"

"Calling you what? And why are _you_ calling _me_ 'Rose'?"

They stopped for a second, looking at each other suspiciously.

Star noticed something. "Why is your hair curler all silver now? Don't you usually have a black one?"

"What? You should know that my limiter is silver. And when did you develop psychic powers?"

"You're the one with powers, not me."

"But you just materialized a monster…"

"Of course I did, how else would I have broken you out?"

"And how did you do that?"

"The same way I usually do…"

Click.

"I think that you two should get out of the truck now," said the driver, pointing his pistol at the pair.

_Damn it! I got so caught up in this that I forgot about him…When did the truck stop?_

He couldn't do anything—the man would shoot them both down if he even made a move.

They slowly walked to the edge of the truck and jumped down. As soon as Akiza's feet touched the ground, the kidnapper pulled her close to him and put his gun to her head.

"Try anything and she dies."

Star had a horrible sense of déjà vu. Once again, a burly guy was holding a gun to the head of a red-haired girl—although the girl in question was acting very strangely all of a sudden.

He hoped that she was focused enough to pull off the same trick that she had earlier.

_Today is just not my day…

* * *

_

Part 2: Discovery

-Neo Domino City, Security Headquarters, 11:00 A.M.-

Rose was trying to escape the headquarters as fast as she could. Her progress was not helped by the numerous security doors that were scattered around the facility.

WHAM

Another one slammed down in front of her. Unfazed, she immediately changed course, dashing past surprised-looking Security officers.

_And how exactly do they get around this place with all of the randomly closing doors?_

She finally saw an exit and ran through it, only to slam into an alley wall.

_I really have to stop running into inanimate objects, _she thought, as she straightened up and started walking.

A few blocks down the road, she found an abandoned garage whose entrance was in another alley. After she looked to make sure no one was watching, she knocked on the door in a specific pattern—two knocks then five knocks—and stepped back. A slot in the door opened to reveal a pair of brown eyes.

"Password?"

"I call shotgun." The door opened.

"Come on in, Rose—whoa. What's with the Security getup?" said a man with reddish-brown hair and a fedora.

"We used guard disguises for a raid. How have you been, Saiga?"

"Oh, nothing new has happened, really. Where is everyone, by the way?" Rose looked at her feet.

"They all…got caught. Except Star." Saiga looked at her in surprise. "I need to meet up with him in that place and see what we can do about this situation."

He nodded. "Okay, come with me."

They walked into the back part of the garage, where Saiga flicked on the lights to reveal four motorcycles.

Raven's Blackbird was closest to the door. Its black and orange paint gleamed as the light shone on its retractable wings.

The Wheel of Fortune, the King's motorcycle, was next. _How does it move that well with only one wheel…?_

She smiled as she saw the third one, a red and white bike called the Yusei Go. _That name seems a little unimaginative…_

Rose gasped when she looked at the final motorcycle in the garage, her own Bloody Kiss. It looked even better than it had when she had dropped it off at Saiga's a week earlier.

"Like it?" he asked. "I modified it a little. I tweaked the body, making it more streamlined, added a higher-performance CPU, powered up the computer a little, and"—he winked at her—"put in a double seat. I even found another scanner to put in it." The other three bikes had radio scanners built in, to monitor Security transmissions. She had been looking for another one to put into hers for _weeks._

She grinned. "This should make my life a lot easier. How much do I owe you?"

He waved off the money she offered. "This job's on me, it's the least I could do. Star, on the other hand, still owes me for the repairs I made on his bike a few weeks ago. Could you remind him for me?"

"Of course."

She put on her helmet and revved the engine, looking pleased at how it sounded. Saiga opened the back door.

"If anything happens, don't forget to come see me."

"I will." The Bloody Kiss sped out the door, and Saiga grinned as Rose popped a wheelie down the alley.

-Neo Domino City, Enforcers Hideout, 11:20 A.M.-

Yusei was in the upstairs room where, years earlier, Kalin had laid out his plans to dominate the Satellite. He smiled, remembering the good times that he had had busting duel gangs.

The smile turned to a puzzled frown when he heard a Duel Runner stop in front of the house.

He remembered every Runner that he had worked on, and even though this particular one sounded slightly different than normal, he could still identify it.

_How did the Bloody Kiss get here? It can't have, can it? I'd better be careful._

He took up a position on the stairs, where he could watch the front door without being seen by anyone walking through.

He didn't have long to wait before the door opened. His heart stopped.

_Akiza…why is she wearing a Security uniform?_ He opened his mouth to call out to her, but an uneasy feeling swept over him and he closed his mouth quickly. _That's her, it has to be. So why am I getting an uneasy feeling?_

The mark on his arm gave him a familiar burning sensation. He quickly ducked into cover and rolled up his sleeve.

_Gold? Not red? Something's up, and I'm not going to find out what it is by just standing here…_

He took a deep breath and stepped out into the open. "Hey, Akiza."

She turned to face him, and suddenly he was staring down the barrel of a gun.

He spoke slowly. "Akiza, are you going to shoot me?"

R

Rose pulled up at the former headquarters of Team Satisfaction. She smiled as she remembered Star telling her about all of the good times that he, the King, Raven, and Luke had had while Team Satisfaction had been around. _What happened to Luke, anyway?_

This building had also been the site of one event that had changed her life forever.

She walked up to the door and stopped short. There were unfamiliar footprints outside the door.

_Someone has been inside._

She slipped her hand inside her jacket, getting a firm grip on her pistol, and walked inside slowly.

The building was quiet, but there were footprints—the same prints that she had seen outside—in the layer of dust that covered the floor. Someone had definitely been inside.

That someone walked down the stairs, saying "Hey, Akiza."

Without thinking, she drew her pistol and aimed at the person, who immediately froze in place. He said slowly, "Akiza, are you going to shoot me?"

Her head was reeling. Her eyes told her that the person in front of her was Star, which made sense because this _was_ where she had told him to meet her. He had even changed into his normal clothes. So why was she getting such a weird feeling about him?

"I would never shoot you, Star. I was surprised, that's all." She holstered her gun as the boy visibly relaxed.

"You're the second person to call me 'Star' today. Does he look that much like me?" asked the boy, stepping forward. She gasped as she finally got a good look at his face. He had a yellow mark on the left side of his face and a scar down the right side.

"What happened to your face?"

He fingered his scar with his left hand. "Oh, this? After you got sent here, Sayer's second D.D. Warrior knifed me in the face. It left a scar, as you can see."

"Star, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Why do you keep calling me 'Star'?"

"That's what I always call you, isn't it?" She remembered something he had said only a moment before. "And why are you calling me 'Akiza'?"

"Well, that's your _name,_ isn't it?"

"Since when?" They glared daggers at each other for a moment.

He chanced another question. "Why are you carrying a gun?"

She gave him an odd look. "Did you hit your head or something? That might be why you're acting strangely…"

"You're the one who's acting strangely," he retorted.

_Amazing. I don't see him for a couple hours and he goes insane?_

She sighed. "Let's deal with this later. For now, I want to take a shower and change."

"Fine. I'll be in the map room."

"The map room?"

"You know, the one with the map of the city in it?" he said sarcastically.

"Don't you mean the operations room?"

"What are you…oh, never mind," he said, walking up the stairs to the operations/map room.

Rose shook her head and went up for a shower.

As the water ran over her, she was thinking furiously. He didn't know what the operations room was called, he didn't know that she carried a gun, he insisted on calling her 'Akiza'…

A possible explanation came to her as she bent to turn off the water.

_No way…it's too outlandish. But it's the only reasonable explanation…_Her eyes widened. _I hope that this isn't as bad as I think it might be._

When she had changed back into her normal clothes, he was still in the operations room.

He looked up as she entered. "Are you ready to talk, Akiza?"

She took a deep breath. "Yes, and I have something to ask you." There was a long pause before she finally said, "Where did you first meet me?"

He looked taken aback. Finally, he answered hesitantly, "In the Daimon Area…"

In one lightning-fast move, she drew her pistol and aimed it at him, flicking the safety off with a menacing click. Thankfully, her finger was outside the trigger guard, but he knew that that might change in an instant if he made a bad move.

"Wrong answer."

"W-what are you doing?"

Her voice was cold. "Let's start off with the basics. What's your name?"

"Akiza, why are you doing this?"

"I am _not_ 'Akiza', so don't call me that."

"What?" She flicked the safety on and off. Click-click. "My name is Yusei Fudo." Her eyebrows rose.

_Interesting__._

"How did you get here?"

"You and I were—"

"I told you that I am not this 'Akiza'."

"But—" Click-click. "_Akiza_ and I were ambushed in an alley in our home dimension by Sayer." _Home dimension?_ "He froze us both with Cold Wave—"

"What's Cold Wave?"

"A spell card." _Spell card?_ "Anyway, he froze us both, summoned three D.D. Warriors, attacked you—_her_ with one, she disappeared, the second warrior attacked me and left me with this scar, and I woke up in the Satellite. I figured out that we had been sent to another dimension and I wanted to start looking for her, but I got attacked by a Sector Security officer. I knocked him out, grabbed his stunner and came here, because this was the hideout of my duel gang when I was younger. You pulled up awhile later and here we are."

She considered his story for a few moments. _It seems plausible; weirder stuff happens around us all the time. _

"I'm assuming that this Akiza girl looks quite a bit like me?"

"You two could be twins." A thought occurred to her.

"Describe some of your other friends."

He said, "First, there's Jack Atlas. He's tall, blond, speaks with an Australian accent, is the most prideful person to ever walk the earth, but is also a very loyal friend. Crow Hogan is an orange-haired jokester who often gets into fights with Jack. He's got a soft spot for kids, and he takes care of a bunch of orphans in the Satellite. There are the twins, Leo and Luna, both short with green hair. Leo is loud and hyperactive, but he's matured over the past few months. Luna is quiet and mature for her age, and she tries to keep Leo in check."

Rose was dumbfounded. Star's lookalike had described the other four Signers perfectly, except for some of their names.

_Does this mean that his friends and my friends are…counterparts from different dimensions?_

The implications of that thought were staggering.

_If they could come here, we would have more allies to take on the Syndicate, and if they're so similar to the Signers, then…_ She could hardly imagine what kind of damage they could cause.

In one smooth move, she holstered her gun. Yusei was visibly relieved.

"I'm sorry about interrogating you like this, but I couldn't take any chances. You could have been an enemy spy or something…I'm Rose, by the way."

"Well, Rose, why did you feel the need to question me like this?"

She sighed and told him about the Syndicate, and how it had taken over Neo Domino City, twisted Sector Security into Syndicate Security, and basically terrorized the citizens of the city. She also told the tale of how the Syndicate had whittled the 100 freedom fighters down to the six Signers…and now to the two that were left.

Yusei thought for a while after she concluded her story. "Star is coming here, you said?" She nodded. "Okay, so when he comes, I'm going to search for Akiza. After I find her, we'll help you take down the Syndicate."

She smiled. "Thank you."

He looked at her for a second.

"Can I have a look at your duel runner?"

* * *

**A/N: I originally intended this chapter to be a four-parter, but by the time I had written three parts, it had gotten ridiculously long, so I decided to shorten it.**

**Next chapter: Star has to resolve a hostage crisis...again...while Rose and Yusei get to know each other beter-and discover the parallels between their worlds. Meanwhile, the four imprisoned Signers discover secrets about their prison cells while, in New Domino City, the four remaining Signers there get a visit from a familiar person.  
**


	6. Replies

**A/N: Aah, testing fever. Even the teachers of the classes that have tests in _June_ are getting into it. I mean, AP teachers are justified because the tests are in May, but can't the June test teachers at least wait until May before they start spazzing? (*minirant, end.)**

**I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's; if I did, it would play up the relationships and the shoryukens so much more. (Yusei beating down Goodwin's guards was so awesome...)**

**And so we go.**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 5: Replies**

Part 1: Resurgence

-Neo Domino City, Seaside House, 11:10 A.M.-

The door to the house opened slowly, revealing the cramped, dirty front hallway. There was a welcome mat on the floor, along with quite a few pictures.

For some odd reason, the dominant color of all of those pieces was pink.

Star stepped through the doorway, looking at his surroundings with distaste.

"What a nice place you've got here. Did you choose the décor to match your hair?" Those mocking words were directed to the tall man standing behind him, who unconsciously stroked his pink Mohawk before placing his left hand back on the shoulder of the red-headed girl standing in front of him. His right hand was holding a gun to the girl's head.

"Oh, it looks like we've got a comedian. You won't joke so much when your girlfriend here has a bullet in her skull, will you? Now stop joking and move to the living room. Turn right at the end of the hallway, and no funny business."

They had to go down two steps to enter the living room, and when the man and the girl descended, Star hoped that she would try something. Maybe try to throw him, pull out her knife and stab him, _anything._ But that moment passed without incident, and they were finally gathered in the living room. The tall man seemed to think hard for a second before he began to speak.

"Now Rose"—the red-haired girl gave him a sharp glance as she said the name—"I need you to do something for me. Do you see that cabinet next to the sofa?" She remained unmoving as both she and Star looked at the small, dirty pink cabinet which was adjacent to the small, dirty pink sofa. _Small, dirty, and pink could describe the whole interior of this house, _thought Star.

The man continued. "Go to that cabinet. And if either one of you tries something, I'll shoot." The girl gave him one long glare before she started walking to the cabinet, nearly tripping over the small chair that was in her path.

As she passed Star, they looked into each other's eyes once again. He couldn't say if it was a trick of the dim light, but her eyes seemed to look…different. Like they were harboring some kind of hurt and fear deep beneath the surface—even more than usual. He felt a kind of prickling on the back of his left hand as her left hand flew to her right forearm for some reason.

_What happened during the hour after we split up?_

She opened the cabinet.

"Do you see the rope in there?" She nodded. "Now take it and tie your boyfriend to the chair. Tight. I'm going to check it, and if it's loose, he's dead."

"But—"

"_Now._"

The rope that she pulled out of the cabinet was thankfully not pink. He wordlessly sat down in the chair, wondering how on earth he managed to get into these crises as she looped the rope around his upper body. She mouthed "Sorry" as she tightened the knots in the back.

A quick check and a barked command later, the girl was sitting next to the man on the couch facing Star. He began to speak.

"My name is Dobocle." Her eyes went wide at the name, which did not go unnoticed. "Remember me, do you? That's good, because I don't remember _you_ at all. For some reason, I hate you. But I don't know why. So you're going to tell me before I hand you in to the Securities."

Star had no clue what this guy was spouting. _How exactly do you hate someone without a reason? And who _is_ this guy?_

"T-this doesn't make sense," muttered the girl. "There was no way you could have survived that crash…" Dobocle immediately jumped to the conclusion that she had caused this crash—even though he didn't remember a crash, he supposed it was some kind of amnesia—and grabbed her roughly by the throat, leaving the gun on the couch, forgotten in the heat of the moment.

"Get him, Rose…get him…_get him…_" Star muttered through clenched teeth. "What are you waiting for?"

"What did you do to me?" asked Dobocle in a desperate tone.

"I'll tell you what happened if you _back off,_" she said.

_WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? _

A

"I'll tell you what happened if you _back off_."

She sneaked a peek at the boy as she said this, and was surprised to find that he was staring at her with an expression that suggested that she had just grown a pair of wings and started flying. When Dobocle backed away slightly, he assumed an expression of disapproval before quickly reverting to an impassive face when Dobocle looked at him.

_It's almost as if he expected me to take this guy out! So now he thinks I'm some kind of fighter like he is?_

The gun was lying, discarded, on the sofa behind Dobocle. _So far, so good._ She placed her arms behind her back as she began to speak.

"So, um, I was at a WRGP party a few months ago with my friends when you came in on your Duel Runner." Both of them looked at her oddly when she said "Duel Runner", but she continued regardless. "You were shouting something about wanting to get a cut of the prize money, and then you started driving around—straight at me. So I summoned Black Rose Dragon, she hit you with her tail, you went through the window, where you were surrounded by Security. You managed to get out, then…"

"So what you're saying is that you…little old you and your little old monster…were able to knock me and my bike out of a window?" He threw back his head and laughed loudly.

_Got it._

Suddenly, Dobocle was all business. "Now, girl, I think you need to tell me the truth, or else your boyfriend is going to get it."

"Oh, so you think I'm lying? How about a…demonstration?" She slapped a card into the duel disk that she had activated behind her back while Dobocle had been laughing. "Come on out, Black Rose Dragon!"

-Black Rose Dragon-

FIRE Attribute, Level 7, Dragon-Type Synchro Effect Monster

1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner monsters  
When this card is Synchro Summoned, you can destroy all cards on the field. Once per turn, you can remove from play 1 Plant-Type monster from your Graveyard to change 1 Defense Position monster your opponent controls to face-up Attack Position, and reduce its ATK to 0 until the End Phase.

She smiled as her ace monster appeared, resplendent in its red and black glory. After a second, they were all covered in rose petals, one of which landed on the black-haired boy's nose. He turned his head to flick it off of him, drawing her attention to the left side of his conspicuously mark-less face.

_I'm going to have to ask him about that later._

Dobocle stared up at the dragon in shock, scrabbling blindly for his gun. He knocked it off the sofa onto the ground in his blind panic, but he didn't notice.

The dragon had to fold its right wing and stick its left into the hallway in order to fit into the cramped living room. As a result of this, Black Rose Dragon's snout was pointed away from Dobocle, meaning that she couldn't Black Rose Flare him. Of course, her tail was a viable weapon.

"Okay, Black Rose Dragon! Tail Whip him!" As the dragon's tail began to move, she dived under the swinging tail and scooped up the gun, putting it out of his reach before turning back to him.

Even though she didn't have her powers, she fully expected him to recoil and shield his face with his hands.

She did _not_ expect Black Rose Dragon's tail to actually hit him.

S

Black Rose Dragon came into existence, but not like it usually did—normally it would simply come through a rainbow-colored portal from the spirit world. This time, it seemed to shimmer into existence, like the light itself was resolving into the dragon. It was a rather cool effect.

_I was scared for a second when she didn't try to get him, but I guess she was going for the grand effect. But why no chant?_

"Okay, Black Rose Dragon! Tail Whip him!" she cried as she dived for his pistol and put it on the cabinet away from him.

_Isn't she the one who likes dual wielding?_

The dragon's tail smacked into Dobocle's hands, leaving quite a few bloody cuts across them as he flew through the air. His head slammed into the wall and he collapsed on the ground, out cold.

Star grinned appreciatively. "Nice job, Rose. Now could you get me out of—" He cut off his question as he heard a muffled sob. _Whaa?_

She was sitting with her knees drawn into her chest and her head on her legs, sobbing quietly. He had no freaking clue why she had suddenly broken down like this. _Is it that time of the month again? That's the only explanation I can think of…_

"Hey, Rose," he said quietly. "I don't know what's going on with you right now, but I can help you. Just let me out of this chair and I'll help you."

Her brown eyes looked up over her knees, and his heart nearly stopped as he saw the tears leaking out of them. She murmured something and Black Rose Dragon's tail sliced through his bonds. In a flash, he had wrapped his arms around her.

"Look, Rose, what happened to you?"

* * *

Part 2: Revelations

Yusei was grinning madly as he ran his hands over Rose's runner. In all aspects, it was exactly like the runner he had modified for Akiza, except that it didn't have a duel disk slot.

_They don't duel here? _He shuddered at the thought of a life without Duel Monsters.

Rose was standing behind him, watching. He was so much like Star; he could never resist the temptation to examine every runner that passed under his nose.

She was carrying his duel disk and his deck, which he had left in what had been Star's/his room.

"What is this, by the way?"

He turned to her, feeling weird about explaining dueling to someone who looked exactly like one of the best duelists in the world…_his_ world, he amended.

He pulled his deck out of his duel disk and started showing them to her; first trap cards, then spells, then monsters. As he went through the monsters in his deck, her eyes grew wider and wider.

"Why do you look so surprised?"

"Your monster cards…they match up exactly with Star's collection of summon stones."

"Summon stones?"

She pulled out her collection of stones, and it was Yusei's turn to widen his eyes.

"Your stones match up exactly with Akiza's monster cards."

"Well, it seems that we're alike in more than appearances, huh?"

"You call them summon stones. How exactly do you summon them?"

"It's simple. We just channel energy through the stones, like this. I summon Rose Tentacles!" The stone in her hand glowed, and a giant rose with red eyes and flailing, leafy limbs appeared behind her.

-Rose Tentacles-

EARTH Attribute, Level 6, Plant-Type Effect Monster

This card cannot be Special Summoned. At the beginning of your Battle Phase, this card gains 1 additional attack this turn for each face-up Plant-Type monster your opponent controls. Each time this card destroys a Plant-Type monster by battle, inflict 300 damage to your opponent.

"Now it's your turn," she said. "Show me how you summon monsters with that machine of yours."

He selected a card, slapping it down on the disk. "Say hello to Speed Warrior!" The light around him shimmered, eventually forming a blue-visored warrior on skates. The surprise he felt was evident when Speed Warrior and Rose Tentacles started _playing tag._ The warrior's superior speed was offset by the plant's longer reach. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when Speed Warrior forgot to brake and slammed into the side of Enforcer headquarters.

"W-w-what just happened?" he asked, white as a sheet, as Speed Warrior got up, dazed.

"Obviously Speed Warrior was mesmerized by the charms of Rose Tentacles and forgot to brake," laughed Rose.

"Wait. You don't understand. These monsters that we summon…they're supposed to be _holograms._ Light made to look like monsters. Only a few people, psychic duelists, can make them real, and I am not one of them. Akiza used to be one, but she lost her powers a few months ago."

She looked at him with interest. "That's odd. The monsters we summon here are always real. And I'm also a psychic, but that's because I can access monster powers without summoning monsters."

Yusei was suddenly lost in thought. "If I can do this…Akiza might be able to as well. And she has some…issues…with her powers. I'm just worried that she might not be able to handle this…"

"Don't worry! If she's anything like me, she'll be just fine," she said, winking at him.

"I hope so…"

"Aah, lighten up. How about this, why don't we set our monsters loose on each other and see what happens? The person whose monsters win the most 'battles' gets first choice of food for dinner."

Yusei's face lit up at the idea of a challenge. "You're on."

* * *

Part 3: Reentrance

-New Domino City, Garage, 1:00 P.M.-

The cursor blinked mockingly. Jack Atlas was not amused.

"I will find out this damn password if it's the last thing I do!" he screamed at the computer.

"Hey, calm down, man," said Crow, trying to hold in his laughter. "That's the whole point of a password. It's not meant to be broken easily."

"Well, I'm going to break it very quickly," said Jack stubbornly.

Crow shook his head. "Good luck with that."

The remaining Signers had been trying to break Yusei's password for about 2 hours with no success. Trudge had left an hour earlier, saying something about having to get back to his stakeout before Mina murdered him.

Luna and Leo were dueling on the table; they didn't want to disturb Jack with their duel disks, especially when he was in such a mood. At this point, Luna had 500 life points left while Leo had 1000. They had both summoned their favorite monsters: Leo's Life Stream Dragon (2900 ATK/2400 DEF) was staring down Luna's Ancient Fairy Dragon (2100 ATK/3000 DEF). Leo was already anticipating his victory when he ended his turn. Luna drew a card and smiled.

"I equip Megamorph to Ancient Fairy Dragon!"

-Megamorph-

Equip Spell Card

While your Life Points are lower than your opponent's, the original ATK of the equipped monster is doubled. While your Life Points are higher, the original ATK of the equipped monster is halved.

Ancient Fairy Dragon's attack points jumped to 4200—more than enough to wipe out Life Stream Dragon and Leo's remaining life points.

"Aw, come on, I almost had you, sis!" Leo protested.

"Almost isn't good enough, is it?" asked Luna teasingly.

Crow nodded thoughtfully.

_She used Megamorph to break through Leo's offence, so why don't we…_

He snapped his fingers to bring attention to himself. "Okay, so how about we get some password breaker software? Then we would be able to find his password without guessing."

"That would be a great idea, except that it is _illegal_ to possess that kind of software," admonished Luna.

"Eh? Since when?"

"Since it became a law a couple years before you were _born_." She shook her head. "Honestly, shouldn't you know these things, Crow?" Leo laughed.

"Okay, okay, it was just an idea."

"Well, I have one too. How about we just use a different computer? One _without_ a password on the administrator account?"

The Tail Signer scratched his hair, looking sheepish. "I…can't believe I didn't think of that sooner. Now where's Bruno's computer?"

Jack said, "We gave it to the twins after the Ark Cradle incident. It should be at their house."

Crow nodded, picked up the keys to his runner, and walked toward the Blackbird, saying, "I should be back in a few minutes. It isn't that far to the Tops. Try not to kill each other while I'm gone, okay?"

A cold voice from the door said, "Well, Mr. Hogan, if that runner of yours touches the ground outside this garage, you won't have to worry about them killing each other. I'll do it for them."

They all spun to face the speaker. "Sayer!" the twins cried out in unison.

Jack looked him up and down. "Sayer…the former leader of the Arcadia Movement?"He snorted derisively. "You don't look so tough. After seeing you, I wonder why everyone's so scared—urk!" Sayer stood there with his hand outstretched as Jack slowly rose into the air, clutching his throat.

"I find your lack of—" Sayer began, but Crow cut him off.

"Let him go, Sayer!" Jack dropped to the ground, shooting the psychic a dirty look.

Luna decided to be the voice of reason. "What do you want with us, Sayer?"

He smiled down at her in what was obviously supposed to be a kind gesture. On him, it looked more like a pained grimace. "I just want all four of you to stay inside this nice little garage, okay? And if any of you takes a step outside…well, I'll be sure to send you enough of Mr. Fudo's body to bury."

"WHAT?" yelled Crow. "So you know where they are? Tell us before I pound you into the ground!"

Sayer waggled his finger at the Tail Signer admonishingly. "Now, now, it's never good to antagonize the hostage-taker; he might be…_unstable_. Just stay in here like good children, and I'll be back soon with a new message."

"Wait." Leo was amazingly calm, especially considering that he was facing the man who had shocked him half to death when testing him for psychic powers and, worse, kidnapped his sister. "What about people who want to visit us? Crow has a job in the Blackbird Delivery Service. It would look weird if Luna and I missed school—we're only here because it's Saturday. And if Jack doesn't get his coffee every morning, he goes nuts."

Sayer contemplated this for a moment, then said, "Oh, so the tagalong twin brother with no powers has a brain after all!" Leo wanted to respond, but Luna cut him off almost immediately. "All right, so you have to go about your normal schedules, but you have to stay here when you're not out and you're not allowed to tell anyone about this or take that flash drive to any computer besides Yusei's. I'll be watching…and you know the consequences for breaking the rules. Goodbye."

He stepped outside and vanished.

The Signers just stood there in stunned silence, absorbing everything that had happened in the last few minutes.

"Damn it!" Jack yelled, startling the other three. "This…this guy just swans in here like he owns the place and tells us that he's kidnapped our friends, and we just let him go? Nobody challenges Jack Atlas like that without some kind of retribution!"

"And how exactly are we going to do something?" Crow asked, irritated. "He has powers that we don't, or was you nearly being strangled a figment of my imagination?"

Meanwhile, Leo asked Luna, "Why did you cut me off earlier? I was about to tell him that I became the Heart Signer!"

"Well, I don't think that we should tell him if he doesn't know. Besides, it might be an unpleasant surprise for him later, right?"

"I guess you're right, sis…"

Crow sighed. "I guess that the only thing we can do is try to break the password."

"Say no more, Jack Atlas will find out Yusei's puny password or die trying!" The other three rolled their eyes.

-8:10 P.M.-

Luna was tossing and turning in what used to be Bruno's bed, unable to go to sleep. She had decided to take an early night, but rest continued to elude her as thoughts of Yusei, Akiza, and Sayer chased each other through her head.

Yusei, her father figure, Akiza, her mother figure, and Sayer, the man who was trying to destroy them.

She got up and started rifling through her deck, looking at three cards in particular. Regulus, Kuribon, and Ancient Fairy Dragon. Under a sudden, irrational impulse, she placed the three cards under her pillow.

With those spirits guiding her, she drifted away almost immediately…

* * *

Part 4: Reactions

-Neo Domino City, Syn Tower, 8:10 P.M.-

The four co-conspirators were meeting once again, fleshing out the details of their plan. Divine, Sayer, and Jose were writing ideas on a whiteboard while Smith was, predictably, suggesting courses of action that were immediately shot down by the other three.

"Ok, how about we execute the four Signers that we captured? We'll make it a public execution, take over all television channels, the whole nine yards."

"No," responded Divine.

"Why?"

"You may not know this, but an enemy becomes most dangerous after one or more of these criteria have been fulfilled: he has a vendetta, or he has nothing else to lose. We've already killed their parents; one _particular_ officerwas disciplined for the first and last time as a result of the raid in which the redhead's parents were killed." The other three nodded, remembering the incident. To this day, that officer held a grudge against Divine, as he had been the one who had disciplined him. However, he was still in on the plan that these four had hatched. In fact, he was out at that very moment, making preparations for later stages of the plan.

"Anyway, they resent us already. If we kill those four Signers, we're taking away everything else that the other two have to lose, which makes them infinitely more dangerous. No, we should just leave them as they are."

Another idea popped into Smith's head. "Well, why don't we just make a broadcast saying that if the other two don't turn themselves in, we'll kill the imprisoned ones? That would work."

"Yes, it would, and I would do that if these were normal criminals, but I can't in this case," said Divine. "The plan requires that they be out in the world for a while. Otherwise, it won't work. I'll eventually lure them back to us using that strategy, but not right now."

Smith nodded, sighing. "Just floating ideas out there. I wish that I could be more useful to the group…"

Divine smiled reassuringly, saying, "You are valuable; your position as the head of Security gives you considerable power. Don't worry, we will have use for you in the future."

They sat back down at the table. Divine suddenly clutched his head in pain, but it seemed to pass as quickly as it had arrived.

Smith was first to respond. "Are you okay, Divine?"

The leader of their group seemed lost in thought for a moment. He spoke with a voice that inexplicably seemed to be filled with suppressed rage.

"What cells did you put the Signers in?"

"Huh?"

"You heard me. _What cells are the Signers in?_"

Flustered, Smith pulled out a handheld computer and punched in some buttons, searching through the Security records.

"Uh, um, cells DI-3354 to 3357," Smith finally said.

"You fool! Why did you put them in those cells?"

"Well, we wanted them to be isolated from the other prisoners, and the entire 3000s wing is empty, so we just picked them at random."

Divine took a deep breath and started speaking slowly to keep in his rage. "Well, did it ever occur to you that there might be a _reason_ why that wing is empty?"

"What?" Smith started frantically tapping his computer. "B-but there's nothing here that shows that there was a reason…"

"Of course not, moron! It was a special order from me, and _I don't leave records,_" he said menacingly. Smith froze, turning his wrist slightly to try to hide the fact that he had been about to record that order.

Divine sighed. "Go! Get them out of those cells now!"

The Security chief looked up in surprise. "Now?"

"If not sooner. Now get out of my sight!"

Smith took the hint and ran out of the room. Jose shook his head, nodded at Sayer and Divine, and followed him. Sayer looked at his "twin" in concern.

"What's so bad about those particular cells?"

"We used to keep the original freedom fighters there before we executed them. While they were in there, they did…something. We don't even know what they did, but trust me when I say that we definitely don't want the Signers in those cells."

"How will this affect the plan?"

"In all honesty, I don't know. It could not affect it at all, or it could be the single thing that derails the entire plan. Either way, Smith will have to face the consequences for making such an idiotic move.

"And once he's outlived his usefulness, even his status as Security Head won't help him."

-Neo Domino City, Security Headquarters Detention Block D, 8:00 P.M.-

The King was going _insane_.

A raid had failed for the first time that he remembered, he and most of the Signers had been imprisoned, he was bored out of his mind, the prison food had probably still been alive when it had been fed to them, and most importantly, _he hadn't gotten his coffee._

He had already studied the layout of his cell so much that he had memorized the cell number: DI-3357.

At least he had been assigned the highest-numbered cell.

He lay on the hard cot, staring at the summon stone that he pulled out of his pocket. The Securities did not confiscate their summon stones; instead, they had fitted all four Signers with inhibitors that suppressed their power to summon monsters.

For the hundredth time, he tried to summon Red Dragon Archfiend. It failed miserably for the hundredth time.

_Grr….when I get out of here, I'll make those dolts pay for imprisoning the King!_

This was the hundredth time that he had had that thought.

He slammed his palm against the wall in frustration, then stopped as he felt an indent on the wall that had not been made by the bricks. In the dim light, it was hard to see, but it looked like…a curled-up dragon?

Curious, he pressed his right hand to it. At that moment, a guard passed by, causing him to look away for a second, taking his hand off the wall.

_Something's changed…_

His eyes swept over the cell once again. Everything was normal; it was almost as dark as ever, although there was a slight pattern of flickering shadows—_Maybe a guard lit a cigarette?—_but that was the only difference.

Sighing, he turned his attention back to Red Dragon Archfiend's stone, cupping it in both hands.

_Holy—_

His right hand was on_ fire_. Literally.

R

Cell DI-3356 was serving as temporary home for Raven on this particular evening. Just like the King, he was bored out of his mind.

He absentmindedly pulled his ace in the hole out of his sleeve, where he had hidden it to pass inspection—the guards here were pretty lax, even when dealing with a famous rebel like him.

_Escaping is going to be pretty easy with this…I hope._

Pocketing it again, he pulled out his most-used summon stone and stared at it, thinking.

_You're pretty powerful, Silverwind, but…against the Securities as they are now, I need something even more powerful. But how do I get it?_

Something caught his eye on the wall. He looked at its source.

_I thought they took away all sharp objects, so how did someone carve a dragon into the wall? It's got a pretty weird design, too._

He had a sudden urge to press his hand to it. _What could it hurt?_ The stone felt cold under his hand.

What he saw when he pulled his hand away made him gasp in shock.

P

Prime had run around his cell so many times that his legs were cramping. Trying to climb the walls left him with bruises on his back from falling on the ground.

He kept moving anyway to keep his mind off his worries.

_I couldn't protect her._ _The only reason that Angel is in this stupid prison is because I didn't go with her. I could have helped her escape, or defeated the Securities, or…_

He sighed. _Who am I kidding? I couldn't even save _myself_, let alone someone else._ Tears formed at the corners of his eyes as this bleak thought went through his mind.

He sat on the hard prison cot, leaning the back of his head against the wall. The point where his green hair touched the wall was the center of the dragon carved into it.

Just by sitting in this position, he felt…calmer. More relaxed.

_I may not have been able to protect Angel this time, but I will definitely become stronger!_ He pulled out his Power Tool Dragon. _And I'm sure you'll help me do it, old pal._

After making this vow to himself, he fell asleep.

A

Angel was on her cot, trying to sleep. So far, her attempts had been unsuccessful. Her thoughts kept drifting to the next cell over, where she knew her brother was probably beating himself up for failing her, even though he hadn't actually been with her when she had been captured…

A sigh escaped her lips. _He has to learn that he can't protect me all the time._

She sat up on her cot—resting her head on a carving in the wall—and searched through her pockets, finding her three favorite stones. Regulus, Kuribon, and Ancient Fairy Dragon. They seemed to stack perfectly, and suddenly, she was very sleepy.

Her head hit the hard pillow and she drifted away…

-End of Day 1-

* * *

**A/N: And so ends the first day of this adventure. Next chapter: A call from Rose finally makes Star and Akiza realize the truth about each other. However, for the two pairs, meeting up is not going to be as easy as they think...Meanwhile, the four conspirators are convinced that their plan is chugging along smoothly. Of course, a villain's alliance can only end in one way...chaos. Who is sowing the seeds of mistrust within their group?**


	7. Development

**A/N: Sorry about taking such a long time to update. As I've said before, most of the adults in my life are caught up in test anxiety. My teacher actually yelled at someone for the first time in months! O.O**

**I have to thank all of my readers for taking the time to read this. Over 1000 hits, 6 faves, 3 alerts? I'm very surprised-in a good way-at the amount of attention this story is getting.  
**

**I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's.**

**And so we go.  
**

* * *

**Chapter 6: Development**

Part 1: Mind Games

-Neo Domino City, Dobocle's House, 3:00-

"_Okay, Black Rose Dragon, Tail Whip him!" She dived under the dragon's swinging tail, scooping up Dobocle's discarded pistol and setting it on the cabinet._

_She turned back in time to watch her dragon's barbed tail smash into his outstretched hands, leaving them cut and bloody._

"No…no…I didn't mean to…"

_He flew through the air, hitting the wall with a loud crack and slumping to the floor._

"Please…"

_For a terrible moment, she thought she had killed him. Her fears subsided when she saw his chest move up and down. He was breathing—no thanks to her. She let out a choked sob, curling up into a sitting position on the floor._

"No…"

_Yusei was saying something. "…let me out of this chair and I'll help you."_

_She muttered an order to her dragon, and a second later, he was by her side._

"_Look, Rose, what happened to you?"_

S

Star was lying awake, listening to her moan in her sleep through the thin walls of Dobocle's house.

He did not understand what could have traumatized her so much that she was reduced from her normal cheerful self to _this_ in the space of less than a day. The only plausible explanation was that something had happened in the hour that they were apart. But what could have scarred her so badly in such a short time?

After she had taken out Dobocle, he had tried to talk to her, but she had shut him out, saying that she needed rest. He had tied up Dobocle in the basement and let her go to sleep, vowing to keep an eye on her.

Her pained voice, even muffled by the walls, corkscrewed right to the center of his brain and stayed there. Eventually, it got to a point where he couldn't take it any longer, and he started to get up. Or tried to. At that exact moment, he got an overpowering urge to sleep.

_What is…going on?_ He was too tired to even think straight.

Sleep was warring with sympathy, and with a push from some outside force, sleep finally won. He slumped back against his pillow.

_Rose, I will definitely help you in the morning._

-?-

Star woke up once again. He was standing against a wall.

_The funny thing is, this is not the weirdest position that I've woken up in._

He looked around, giving his eyes time to adjust to the darkness. Movement was definitely out of the question for now—he didn't want to break his neck stumbling around in the dark. In fact, he was surprised that he had gotten to that position in the first place.

The room became clearer to him as the seconds passed, and as it did, something started bugging him more and more. Finally, he could see the doorway, the dresser—obviously this was a bedroom—the nightstand, the bed…

_Oh, crap._

He had somehow wandered into Rose's room.

_Don't move. Don't make a sound. Just back away very slowly._

His mind involuntarily brought up the memory of the last time he had been in Rose's room at night. He had accidentally left a screwdriver in there and only remembered it after she had gone to sleep. In the dark, he'd tripped and caused quite a bit of noise on the way down.

She had greeted him with a blast of flames. It had been intended to scare any intruder into stopping in their tracks, and it had performed its job admirably.

He shuddered. _Don't want a repeat performance, huh?_

The doorway was across the room. _Quietly…_

She began to stir.

…_why, God, why?_

As he continued to tiptoe toward the door, he figured out what was bothering him—this was Rose's room in Team Satisfaction headquarters, not Dobocle's house.

Her left eye opened halfway.

Speculation could wait until _after_ he was out of range of flame blasts.

He cocked his head as he heard a faint sound—like a human voice.

"_Somnum…somnum…_"

_What the hell?_

Rose, who had been about to prop herself up on her elbows, suddenly fell back and appeared to go to sleep. He didn't know whether to be grateful or wary.

A man walked into the room. Star sized him up quickly: untidy brown hair, trench coat, scar over one eye. All in all, a normal Satellite dweller.

_How did he get in? I'll have to stop him, of course. _He glanced at Rose. It was worth the risk.

"Who are you?" he asked quietly. The man appeared not to notice him, advancing towards Rose's dresser, where she usually kept her summon stones when she was in that building. He started rummaging through the drawer, pulling out…a red, lacy bra.

Apparently she hides her summon stones with her underwear.

Star's brain suddenly kicked into overdrive, imagining Rose wearing _that_…

_Oh, God…get your mind out of there, now!_

He turned away in embarrassment. While his face was turned, the man seemed to find the stone that he was looking for and slipped it into his pocket. Star turned back to face him, still blushing slightly.

"I said, who are you?" repeated Star, pulling out his pistol and aiming it at the man in an obvious threat.

Brown-hair continued to ignore him, picking up Rose's black hair curler from the nightstand where it had been residing.

_What's with the color switch? It was black in the morning, then silver earlier today…_

The strange man started reaching for her forehead. It was too much for Star.

"Touch her and di—get shot in the leg," he said, switching his target from the man's head to his kneecap.

_Control yourself. _He couldn't exactly go around shooting everyone who got near her, but this guy was definitely asking for it.

Brown-hair _still_ ignored him.

"Don't say I didn't warn you." He pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. No sound, no vibration. The trigger pulled back smoothly, and that was it.

_Eh?_

He frantically examined his pistol, checking to see if everything was in order. It was. He tried again with the same result.

In frustration, he holstered his gun and plucked a summon stone from his pocket. "Speed Warrior, I need you!" No response.

_My gun won't work, my stones won't respond…_

Brown-hair gently brushed a few strands of her hair out of her face.

_Hey, I'm the only one allowed to do that, buddy...wait, what am I thinking?_

Star ran up to the man, letting loose a powerful punch that was sure to send this guy's head into the wall hard enough to leave a hole, if it connected.

It didn't.

His hand went _through_ the man's head.

_What?_

He attempted another punch, but overbalanced when his fist did not meet the expected resistance.

Unwilling to give up, Star continued to aim blows at the man as he said a few words over the hair curler.

"_Haec respondere…"_

Brown-hair leaned down to whisper into Rose's ear.

"The entrance to the Underworld is on the witch's island."

_What is this guy babbling about?_

The man smiled. "I must thank Divine for teaching me these incantations…who knew that a dead language could be so useful?"

At this point, Star was standing behind him, still desperately aiming punches and kicks.

"Why—can't—I—_touch—you—_"

Brown-hair turned around and finally seemed to notice him.

"Well, whom do we have here? Ah, Star, how are you doing?"

"Who are you and what did you do to Rose?"

"Oh, you'll find out in due time. For now…" He stretched out his hand. "_Nocte memorem,_ and wake up._"_

-6:00 A.M.-

Star woke up once again.

He vaguely remembered having a dream, but he could not for the life of him recall what exactly it had been about. Something to do with Rose…_Oh crap, Rose!_

The covers hit the floor about a second after his feet did.

He stopped at the door frame, remembering what happened the last time he had been in her room while she was sleeping, and decided that the doorway was an excellent place to watch her and see if anything would happen.

His silent vigil was interrupted after a couple hours by a slight vibration at his hip.

* * *

Part 2:

-Neo Domino City, Team Satisfaction Headquarters, 8:00 A.M.-

"Wake up, Sta-Yusei."

"Five more minutes, Crow…" the boy murmured sleepily.

"Yeah, you're definitely out of it. Get _up,_ Yusei."

"Come on…"

"You leave me no choice." Click-click.

Waking up with a pistol in your face is never a pleasant experience.

Adrenaline rushed through Yusei as he crossed his eyes to focus on the gun aimed at him. She was holding it sideways. For some reason, that scared him much more than it had when it was upright.

Rose laughed melodically, flipping the gun around her finger as she holstered it. "Breathe, Yusei. It's unloaded."

He muttered something about a killshot as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

"Aah, lighten up, will you?"

"Seems like someone's in a good mood today, huh?"

"Are you mad because my monsters beat yours into the dust yesterday?"

"That wasn't fair. You didn't let me use synchro monsters."

"Only because you summoned Stardust right off the bat to annihilate my poor Lord Poison."

"Well, you never said that I had to summon monsters on the same level as yours…"

They had spent the previous afternoon comparing notes on each other's lives while watching their monsters battle. She had seemed pretty open, but he sensed that she was hiding something.

Well, he was hiding something too—for some reason, he didn't tell her about anything after Akiza got her turbo dueling license. He'd tried, but the words just wouldn't leave his mouth.

"Anyway, why are you in such a good mood?" he asked.

She grinned. "I was just remembering some things. This"—she patted her jacket over her holster—"is my favorite way to wake Star up…oh no, Star! I forgot to call him! And he didn't call either…this is bad…"

Yusei watched as she tapped in Star's frequency on her communicator. She didn't get through to him, so she tried a few more times with no response.

"I hope he's okay," said Rose worriedly.

"I think he'll be—" Yusei began.

He was cut off by wailing sirens. A voice from outside yelled, "Come out with your hands up! We have you surrounded, so don't try anything stupid!"

"You've got to be _kidding_." Rose's furious expression was so similar to Akiza's that it was scary.

"What do we do now?" yelled Yusei over the noise.

"Get your stuff and go to the kitchen!"

A minute later, he was watching her slice the kitchen counter with a knife that she had pulled out of God knows where.

"What is this supposed to accomplish?" he asked.

"Give it a second."

A square panel popped out of the surface, revealing three buttons.

"Whoa, the Enforcers never had _that_ when we were younger."

She smirked. "We've made some adjustments over the years. There's a version of this in every safehouse we have. It can only be opened if you have your other hand in exactly the right spot."

"And how exactly are you supposed to open it if you don't have a knife?"

"That's why it's in the _kitchen_, Yusei."

Rose placed the panel above the buttons and pressed the center one as the panel fell back into place, sealing like it had never been there. Behind them, the kitchen island ground itself into the floor, revealing a passageway.

Yusei stared in amazement. She grinned like a child showing off a new toy. "Hey, you never know when you'll need to make a quick getaway." They jumped into the hole and slid into a small room.

The Bloody Kiss was there, gleaming in the dim light as it awaited its next ride.

"So _this_ is where you put your runner, huh?"

She had already stuffed her bag into a side compartment—she kept one in every safehouse—put on her helmet, and slid into the front seat when the passageway sealed itself behind them. "Come on, Yusei, let's go!"

He donned a spare helmet and sat behind her, blushing as he put his arms around her waist. She felt _exactly_ like Akiza did.

_And why is that something to blush about?_

U

Once again, Ushio had gotten the crap duty.

His job was to stay on his bike and patrol a section of clear, open ground 100 yards from the house and stop anyone who passed.

_Like anyone in their right mind would come through here._

He had been assigned to that post from about 6:00 A.M., when the tip had been called in, to now. _I can't believe it's taking them this long to set up a perimeter._ And this was _after_ pulling an all-nighter trying to help Mikage fill out the paperwork for the Signers at the station. He yawned, imagining his nice, warm bed, which he would probably not get back to until midnight tonight—Security Chief Smith would probably put him on another shift or two. The man didn't even have a minute of field experience.

A slight sound shook him out of his irritation long enough for him to draw his pistol and aim it at the sound's source: a small rat.

Sighing, he holstered his gun and settled in on his bike.

It was going to be a _long_ day.

-A few minutes later-

"Ushio?" said the officer at the other end of the communication. He unsuccessfully tried to look like he was at attention.

"I read you loud and clear, Kazama. What's happening?"

"We're about to burst in on them. Get ready to stop anyone coming through there."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Ushio responded, "Of course."

A faint voice drifted over from the house: "Come out with your hands up! We have you surrounded, so don't try anything stupid!"

Ushio sighed. This wasn't a _movie_, for the love of…

"Something the matter, Officer?" He started as the deep, commanding voice emanated from his bike's speakers. _Ten seconds after an operation starts is not a good time to call, Commander_.

"Nothing at all, sir." The Commander studied him thoughtfully and smiled.

"Good. You should get ready, then. They might be coming your way." He terminated the conversation as Ushio successfully suppressed his eye-roll reflex for the second time.

"Like they would," he muttered.

The ground rumbled a few feet from where he was waiting, on the other side of him from the house.

_What's going on?_

A bright red motorcycle popped out of a hole in the ground and flew into the air.

Ushio had to reach up and manually lift his jaw back into place.

Y

They flew out of the passage, scaring the hell out of the surprised officer who was only a few feet behind them. He radioed for backup immediately and gave chase.

"So much for a clean getaway," Yusei called to Rose.

"Oh, shut up!" she replied eloquently, pulling out a stone. However, the officer behind her had already activated his power amplifier and beaten her to it.

"Deliver justice, Stygian Sergeants!" A familiar two-headed, bat-winged, motorcycle-riding monster appeared next to the pursuing officer.

_Trudge!_

_But if it was him, he wouldn't be chasing us…that means that it has to be this dimension's version of him. And he's going to attack us before Rose can summon her dragon..._

On the fly, Yusei activated his duel disk and drew a card, which he immediately set. A card back appeared in front of their motorcycle. Rose raised an eyebrow at this, but said nothing.

_Why isn't it disappearing…oh yeah, no Speed World._

"Stygian Sergeants, attack!" yelled the officer. The monster sped at them.

Rose swerved out of the way of its first headlong charge, but it wheeled around for another try as their pursuer summoned another monster. "Gate Blocker, trap them!"

-Gate Blocker-

EARTH Attribute, Level 4, Rock-Type Effect Monster

Your opponent cannot gain Speed Counters by the effect of "Speed World".

A large, stone _thing_ with a single, creepy eye in the center of it came into existence at the side of the Bloody Kiss. Yusei involuntarily remembered trying to deal with that thing while speeding down that trash pipeline so long ago.

Rose tried to steer to the other side, but it jumped to the other side before she could get there. In that manner, it kept them centered on a collision course with Stygian Sergeants.

Yusei ground his teeth. Was Trudge trying to _kill _them?

"I won't be able to avoid this one," warned Rose.

"Don't worry, I've got it." He pressed a button on his duel disk, and the card back that Rose had noticed earlier flipped itself up. An odd-looking scarecrow made of bits of trash sprang forth from the card. "I activate Scrap-Iron Scarecrow!"

-Scrap-Iron Scarecrow-

Normal Trap Card

Activate only when an opponent's monster declares an attack. Negate the attack, and Set this card face-down again instead of sending it to the Graveyard.

Stygian Sergeants had to swerve to avoid the sudden barrier that had appeared. By sheer dumb luck, it moved to the side that Gate Blocker was currently on.

The impact was enough to make both Rose momentarily lose control of the motorcycle.

"What the hell was that?" she shouted as they came up on the first few buildings of the Satellite proper. Yusei decided not to reply—she needed to focus on not splattering them across an alley wall.

Not-Trudge was matching them turn for turn through this portion of the Satellite. Hoping to lose him, Rose started weaving through the early morning traffic, heading for the Daedalus Bridge. Despite their efforts, he was _still_ keeping pace with them, even though he was now too far away to battle them.

"You have any other tricks like that scarecrow up your sleeve?" she called.

He thought for a moment. _The monsters behave like they would if they were real…do spells and traps work like that too?_

His speed spells were in a pouch at his belt. He reached in, careful not to lose it, and activated it.

_There's no Speed World, but it's a normal spell card so it should still work…right?_

"I hope this works…I activate the Speed Spell Overboost!"

-Speed Spell-Overboost-

Normal Spell Card

Gain 4 Speed Counters. During the End Phase, the number of your Speed Counters becomes 1.

Both driver and passenger were thrown back as the Bloody Kiss suddenly accelerated. Rose was a skillful driver, and she managed to keep control of her motorcycle.

He silently thanked Jack for lending the card to him during one of their duels.

"Nice!" whooped Rose appreciatively as their pursuer fell farther and farther behind.

R

This Duel Monsters game of Yusei's was proving to be full of surprises. First that junky scarecrow of his, and now a crazy speed boost…those cards were very useful.

Of course, they were cards for a game, and therefore they had their drawbacks, as demonstrated when the motorcycle suddenly started decelerating.

"What's going on, Yusei?"

"The effect of this card gives you speed counters—I mean, a speed boost for a while, but then you drop back to just above minimum speed."

She cursed mentally and started looking for an alley to go into—if they stayed on the same course, that officer would find them eventually.

"Anything else you neglected to mention?"

"No, not for this card, anyway."

"Good to know," she replied sarcastically.

They finally found a big enough alley, and it was mercifully empty—she had barely avoided the pedestrians on the city street as it was.

As they made the turn, however, she caught a glimpse of a certain man, who appeared to be talking into a video communicator.

_No…how can he be here?_

She lost concentration slightly and wobbled a bit, but they didn't crash.

They parked the Bloody Kiss behind a dumpster and watched as the officer flew past them, both breathing a sigh of relief. Rose turned to Yusei, breathing quickly.

"I need to make a call, can you take over driving?"

He nodded and they switched places.

Once they were out the other side, they made a beeline for the Daedalus Bridge while Rose frantically tried to reach Star for the second time that morning. After what seemed like an eternity to her, he picked up.

S

Star checked the Caller ID on his communicator. _Rose? But…she's…right here… _He received the call warily.

"Who are you?"

"Star, it's me," said the familiar voice. "Is your Caller ID on the fritz or something?"

"It must be my eyes that are on the fritz, because you should be _sleeping right in front of me._"

Faintly, he heard the voice on the other line say, "It seems like they met up, Yusei!"

_Yusei?_

Her voice was suddenly louder again. "Star, I need to explain something."

"Please, do so, or I think I'll go insane. How can you be in two places at once?"

"That's the thing. I'm not. The person in front of you is...well, you may find this hard to believe."

"I'm already finding this situation hard to believe. Please tell me."

"That girl is…me, from another dimension."

* * *

Part 3: Soul Sisters

-Spirit World-

Angel had to be hallucinating. That was the only possible explanation for her awakening in a lush green forest that looked nothing like the bleak prison cell she had fallen asleep in. A breakout was unlikely, because the closest thing that Neo Domino City had to a forest was the central park, which was not as big as the forest that spread out in all directions around her.

She looked around and tried to get her bearings, which was hard because the many trees made it difficult for her to see the sun. Finally, she picked a direction at random and started walking.

L

Luna smiled as she walked through the familiar, dense forests of the Spirit World. After all that had happened in that one day, it was nice to be able to go to a place untouched by trouble. Even though it was night in her world, this forest was bathed in bright sunlight. For some reason, she was wearing her normal clothes instead of her pajamas.

After a few minutes, she found a lake in the middle of the forest that many of the more animal-like monster spirits used as a watering hole. The ones who were there when she passed called out friendly greetings to her.

She found herself walking along the lake, heading for the town. Maybe she'd talk to Torunka; she hadn't seen him for a long time. The water was still enough to reflect the world around it as she glanced in.

_What happened to me?_

Her reflection's face was perfectly normal, but her clothes were dirty. She supposed that this would be the inevitable result of staying in a house with 3 other guys, none of whom knew how to use a washing machine, but Spirit World lake water didn't usually predict the future. Besides, she normally didn't have a weird bulge under her clothing. She looked down at herself, and saw that she looked like she usually did. This water was apparently doing a really bad job of reflecting her.

When she looked up, she saw something that looked like her reflection staring at her from across the lake.

Spirit World lake water didn't normally decide to defy the laws of physics, either.

Curious, she started circling to her right, trying to get close to the mysterious figure. Her look-alike seemed to have gotten the same idea at the same time, and she was circling to _her_ right, with the net result being that they maintained the exact same distance from each other. Luna switched directions, trying to counteract this, but her counterpart switched directions as well. Same result.

_This is just weird…_

They both stopped dead in their tracks. Luna pointed to her right as her look-alike pointed to _her _right. Three more simultaneous direction switches made her more than a little exasperated.

Finally, Luna pointed to a tree about midway between them. Her counterpart did too. At an unspoken signal, they ran for the tree.

A few seconds later, Luna was face to face with her mirror image. Same green hair in the same style, same clothing (although her look-alike's clothes were slightly dirtier), same stance, same _everything._

"Who are you?" they asked at the same time. Suddenly tired of the twins-do-everything-simultaneously! routine, Luna held up a hand to forestall the other's response.

"Look, we're not going to get anywhere if we keep acting like this, so I'll go first. My name is Luna. What's yours?"

"I'm Angel," she replied. "Where are we, exactly?"

Luna explained the concept of the Duel Monsters Spirit World to her. Angel seemed to quickly understand most of her explanation, except for one portion.

"What are duel monsters?"

Luna was shocked that there was actually a place in any world that did not know about Duel Monsters. She pulled out her deck as Angel produced a collection of small stones. They matched her monster cards exactly.

"Whoa…"

But before they had the chance to explore this further, they each felt slight tugs on their spirits. It was time to go back to their worlds.

"Try to come back here tonight! I'll be waiting for you," Luna said. Angel nodded.

At the same time, they drifted back to their own worlds.

* * *

Part 4: Seeds of Discord

-Neo Domino City, Syn Tower, 8:15 A.M.-

Sayer was lounging in one of the chairs, idly flipping a stone and a card in his hands as he waited for his counterpart to come out of his meeting with the city Senate. Even though the Syndicate did control the city, they still kept the Senate running to maintain the illusion that they were a fair and just government.

Well, they _were_ fair and just, but an irritating minority of the population seemed determined to think that they weren't.

The elevator dinged and Divine walked into the top floor conference room.

He strode to his place at the head of the table, saying "Your report?"

"Fudo and Akiza are in this world, they've each met up with the other's counterparts, this world's Signers are imprisoned, the other world's Signers have been convinced to stay at home, they have the flash drive, I have souvenirs from both psychics, I've planted a suggestion in Rose's mind, and the green-haired girl discovered her connection to the Spirit World." Sayer paused for breath. "Not bad for less than 24 hours of work."

"Don't get too excited yet—this is where it gets tougher."

"About Rose…there was a slight complication while I was planting the suggestion-thanks for teaching me how to use the incantations, by the way."

"Go on…"

"That Star boy saw me planting the suggestion."

"So? I trust you wiped him?"

"Weren't you paying attention to their whereabouts? Star is in that seaside house, while Rose is in Satisfaction headquarters."

"Ah…this wasn't exactly unexpected. But to think that he should reach that stage so soon…"

"But…shouldn't we do something about him?"

"No. This is just a part of the plan that matured faster than expected, that's all. It won't hinder our progress."

"If you say so."

"Good. Now where's that Smith fool?"

"Overseeing the Security forces who are chasing Fudo and Rose right now," said a slow, deep voice from the elevator. Jose had to stoop to avoid hitting his head on the frame. "Apparently, they've lost them."

"That's to be expected," said Divine. "Did you really think that two Signers could be captured by his crap officers? That raid was just an exception to the rule."

"Best not to let him hear that."

At that moment, Smith entered the conference room, fuming.

"I give them every resource possible, and they _still_ can't capture two teenagers?"

Divine quickly got up to reassure the flustered Security Chief.

"Don't worry about it; it was very unlikely that they would be captured in any case."

"If you say so…"

They gathered around the table.

Sayer impatiently asked, "So what's next? Do we just wait here? Because the more time we spend here, the more time that Fudo and his twin have to get Akiza and Rose away from us."

Smith sighed. "Sayer, I respect you, but you have to get your priorities straight and stop thinking with your di—urk!" He clutched at his throat as Sayer watched impassively.

"You were saying?"

"Release him, Sayer," Divine said in a bored tone. "This is the third time this week—you have to learn to control yourself." Smith slumped back down to the table, breathing heavily as he shot an angry glare at Sayer.

Jose closed his eyes and shut out the other three. Smith may be an imbecile, but he was right. The only aspects of the plan that Sayer wanted to execute were those concerning either red-haired girl. It was almost sickening.

The Security Chief wasn't any better, though. He could not think strategically at all, and he was basically Divine's pet dog—just point him at a target and release—and he had an intellect to match.

Divine himself was irritating. He always lorded it over the others just because he had come up with the plan and because he was a psychic. Never mind that Jose had created the first draft of the plan, or that he had certain techniques to counter psychics. The worst thing was that Sayer and Smith both looked up to this prat with delusions of grandeur!

To top it all off, the three would bicker over every little thing, and expect Jose to choose a side. Didn't they realize that there were things more important than their petty squabbles?

Well, it was perhaps better for him if they didn't, as his plan to double-cross them wouldn't work otherwise.

So he would watch, and wait, and plant little seeds in everyone's minds—that would make his plan much easier.

"Jose, where are you going? Off to make preparations _again_?" called Smith as he walked back to the elevator.

Stooping slightly, he replied, "Yes, and I also want to check on how _his_ end of the plan is going." He pronounced the pronoun like it was a disgusting swearword.

The elevator dinged and descended.

_Yes, I'm off to make preparations, Smith—just not the ones you think._

* * *

**A/N: In case you're wondering, Sayer was chanting in Latin.**

**Next chapter: Neo Domino City is a big place, especially for two pairs of teenagers who are simply trying to get in touch with each other. Also, those Signer prison cells are more powerful than anyone ever expected...  
**

**Translations:**

**Somnum: Sleep**

**Haec respondere: Respond to these words**

**Nocte memorem: Forget this night**

**(Or at least it said so when I typed it into Google Translator...)  
**


	8. On the Road

**A/N: Sorry for taking such a long time to update, but it's been really insane. On the bright side, everything should cool off in two weeks (at least, I hope so).**

**Thanks to everyone who took the time to read and review my story.**

**I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's.**

**And the story goes on (and on, and on...Strangers, waiting...).  
**

* * *

**Chapter 7: On the Road**

Part 1: Tag

-Neo Domino City, Dobocle's House, 8:10 A.M.-

"That girl is…me, from another dimension." Those words chased each other through Star's mind as he struggled to comprehend what she was saying. In his confused state, the only response that he could muster was a hesitant "Whaa…?"

Rose continued to explain with greater confidence. "Apparently, there are other dimensions, and two residents of a parallel dimension somehow ended up here. And those two people are the other dimension's equivalent of you and me. So they look and sound exactly like us."

"This makes no sense…" But his mind pulled up a memory of his childhood, as if it had waited for this moment to display it:

_A six-year-old boy with jet-black hair was picking through the rubble of an abandoned laboratory. He had been playing hide-and-seek outside with his friends King and Raven, under Martha's watchful eyes. Raven was 'it', and he knew he needed a good place to hide, so when he saw the derelict building, he went inside right away._

_As he delved deeper, however, his curiosity took over, and he forgot about the game and began to explore it in earnest. Finally he arrived at the central testing chamber. The center of the room was dominated by a huge glass cylinder. He pressed his nose to the glass and saw that inside it was a weird-looking, multifaceted orange crystal._

_He continued to explore the chamber, and finally came upon a solitary desk with some papers still scattered on it. The paper on top caught his eye immediately. It was covered with intricate-looking equations that made his head hurt. The only thing on the paper that he understood was a 6 written in the middle of the paper. But on the bottom, he saw two things._

_In a hurried, untidy scrawl, he made out the words "alternate dimensions?"_

_And printed in the lower right-hand corner was a name._

_Hakase._

_His father's name._

Could his father's research have had anything to do with this?

Star was brought back to reality when Rose continued to talk.

"I know how you feel. I couldn't accept it at first either, but it does make sense. They don't act exactly like we do; that's how I figured out that Yusei—that's your, uh, twin—wasn't you. She doesn't act like me, either, does she?"

He flashed back to the sudden crying fit she had had after taking out Dobocle the day before. "No, not at all. What's her name, by the way?"

"Akiza. Now—what's that, Yusei? Oh, okay. Yusei wants to know how she's doing."

"She's sleeping. There's nothing to worry about right now," he said. It was technically true.

Rose seemed to sense something in his tone, but she decided to ignore it for the time being. "That's good. We're being chased by Securities right now—"

"_What?_ How did they find you?"

"I don't know, Star—so it would be dangerous to meet up with you as we are now. Rendezvous at…"

"See, that's the problem. Some guy named Dobocle kidnapped Akiza, put her in the back of a truck, and drove up to his house. I broke her out of the back, but he hit one of my tires, so I had the car go back for repairs. She took him out, but now we're stuck in his house with a truck that looks like it's been through a war zone and a monstrous motorcycle that would probably be unsafe for us both to ride on. I checked yesterday. Suggestions?"

"Stay there, we'll lose Security and come to meet you. Where's the house?"

"To the north of the bridge, just follow the seaside road."

"We're on our way…" All of a sudden, her voice was more uncertain than usual.

"Rose, what's up?"

"Star…I saw…_him._"

"No way. I thought he was reassigned?"

"He might have been…but now he's back."

His left hand unconsciously formed into a fist at the thought of him. "But this time, we're ready to end it. Not now, though. I want to help you when you face him."

"…Okay."

"I'll see you soon."

She shut off the connection. Star sat down against the doorframe and settled in to wait for Akiza to wake up.

-Neo Domino City, Daedalus Bridge, 8:20 A.M.-

It had been a long time since Yusei had had to run from Securities, and he was pretty rusty. Whenever he thought they had given them the slip, an officer would spot them and the chase would resume. He was getting increasingly annoyed with the persistence of the officers as they weaved in and out of traffic.

Rose's conversation with Star earlier did nothing to ease his tension. She had mentioned a "_him_", like she couldn't even bear to speak his name. Considering that she was Akiza's counterpart, he was forced to assume that _he_ could only be this dimension's answer to Sayer.

Facing one of him was bad enough. Fighting two…

He hoped that Rose could get her head on straight before confronting him.

By the time they got to the bridge, no less than five officers were chasing them.

"We won't be able to shake them all," he said.

Rose was looking around, a thoughtful expression on her face. The officers were close enough to see, but too far to fight…but that was the only reason why the idea forming in her head would work.

"North is to the left at the end of the bridge, right?" she asked.

"Yes, but if we turn that way, they'll follow us all the way up!" he replied.

"Don't worry. I won't let them." She pulled out a stone. "My turn."

She started chanting as they approached the end of the bridge.

"Chilling flames engulf the entire world. Pitch-dark flower, set into bloom! Appear now, Black Rose Dragon!"

Her dragon appeared, but instead of looking like it was generated by a hologram, it seemed to appear out of a kind of invisible portal.

"What are you going to do with that?" he called. They were about to reach the end of the bridge.

"Turn left when we get there!"

"But they'll see—"

"Trust me!"

They reached the junction.

"Black Rose Gale!"

The dragon flapped its wings, creating a huge cyclone and spreading rose petals around the immediate area. Visibility dropped to zero, but luckily, no one crashed. Yusei had already started to turn when the gale started, so he was able to turn without any trouble.

The same could not be said for the pursuing officers. They sped straight into Black Rose Dragon's attack and were blown every which way—those motorbikes of theirs were a bit lighter than the cars.

When they picked themselves up, they had no idea where their quarry had gone.

-Dobocle's House, 8:30 A.M.-

Akiza sat up and instinctively reached for her hair curler. Its calming effect was immediate once she closed her fingers around it. She sighed as she fixed it in her hair.

_How…how did this happen? Why do I have my powers back? More importantly, what will he—they think of me?_

Star had risen from his post outside the door when he heard the sudden movement.

"How are you doing, Akiza?" _He stopped calling me Rose,_ she noted.

"I-I'm fine…" She knew how weak that sounded, but thankfully he didn't press her on it.

"That's good…I have something to tell you."

_Oh no, here it comes…_

"I'm sorry for calling you 'Rose' yesterday; I had you mistaken for someone else."

_Huh?_

"You may find this hard to believe, but I'm not the guy you know as Yusei. My name is Star."

_What?_

"Actually, saying that I'm not Yusei is kinda inaccurate. It seems that we're two different versions of the same person, living in different dimensions."

She immediately grasped what he was getting at. "So this Rose person is…me from this dimension?"

"Yeah."

It did make sense. That explained why this guy didn't have a mark on his face, why he had called her 'Rose' all day yesterday, why he had been looking at her so oddly during that situation with Dobocle…She felt oddly relieved; with any luck, she could hide the return of her powers from the actual Yusei and convince this guy that she wasn't such a monster.

She got up, saying "So where are Yusei and Rose now?"

"They're coming here right now. In the meantime, I'm about to make breakfast. Do you want to join me?"

"Sure."

As they ate, she surreptitiously glanced at him every few seconds. Star and Yusei were similar in more than appearance. He moved and talked almost exactly like him. If not for the lack of a mark, she would not have been able to tell them apart.

He explained the story of the Syndicate and the Signers during breakfast, and she in turn told him about her friends. However, like Yusei, she couldn't tell him anything after she got her license.

Her feelings of relief increased as Star told her that all of this world's Signers could cause physical damage.

At least in this world she wouldn't be considered a freak.

_Where did that come from? I gained control of my powers, then I lost them and regained them…ever since Sayer returned, I—everything just went to hell._

After their meal, they went to put the dishes away, and she noticed something.

"What are those marks on your left hand?" There were five yellow triangular marks on the back of his hand, arranged in such a way that they were equidistant from the center of his hand.

"Oh, these? When I was younger, before I became a freedom fighter, I had a run-in with a Security officer. He said something that irritated me, we exchanged a few insults, and he arrested me. They let me off with these tracking marks. After I joined the freedom fighters, they disabled that tracking component of the marks, so now they're just tattoos that I never intended to get," he finished with a chuckle. "Although they have started prickling lately—wait, what was that?"

She cocked her head, listening intently. "I don't hear anything."

"I heard a thump coming from the basement…oh man, I totally forgot about Dobocle. Guess I'd better go check on him."

Akiza followed him into the basement. He flicked on the lights.

Dobocle was leaning against the wall as best he could, with a phone hanging off the wall next to his face.

Star immediately ran over to hang it up, but Dobocle managed to shout, "I've been caught, send forces ASAP!"

Trouble could just never leave them alone.

The raven-haired Signer seemed to want to beat the man into the ground, but he managed to hold in his anger as he instructed Akiza to get her stuff and meet him in the garage.

As they passed through the kitchen, Star rummaged around for a piece of paper and penned a short message that seemed to consist of jumbled-up letters. When she looked at him quizzically, he explained, "No time to call, and I don't want Security deciphering this." He took a detour to the front and pinned it on the outside of the door.

Dobocle's runner was _huge_, but the seat could only safely fit one of them. The passenger would have to balance precariously on the back and hope that they didn't meet any tight curves at high speed.

_Not again…_

Star passed Akiza the keys.

"You're driving."

_Whew._

"But what about you?"

"I'll be fine, just hurry up and let's go!"

She helped him up onto the runner, opened up the garage door, and sped out, with him holding on for dear life.

"Which way?" she asked.

"The rendezvous point is to the left."

After a few seconds, all that they could see of Dobocle's house was a small speck on the horizon.

R

Evading the Securities who had been chasing them had been no small feat, but Yusei and Rose had finally managed it. The winding seaside road seemed to stretch on forever as each of them envisioned finally meeting up with their friends again.

So when they got to the house, walked up to the door, and found a coded note, they were more than a little irritated.

It was a short message that read: "10. Ujeztnvd ksetonpl. Rmqjpnz." Yusei stared at it, mystified, until Rose suddenly groaned. "We have to get moving or we'll find Security on our tails. _Again._"

"Where did you get that from?" She ran back to the runner and jumped into the driver's seat.

"Get on and I'll tell you." He jumped in the back, and they started off on the same route that Star and Akiza had taken only a few minutes before.

"It's a simple substitution code. The number in front—"

"Is the number of letters that your message is shifted by?"

"Let me finish. We have to factor the number in front to get two other numbers. _Those_ numbers, when we alternate them with the smaller number first, become the shift. In this case, 10 becomes 2 and 5. Reversing the process—we reset the alternation at the beginning of the words—gets me 'Security incoming. Phoenix.'"

"That makes sense. Now what does this 'phoenix' mean?"

"The Bootleg bar. Phoenix became our nickname for it after King accidentally set the place on fire."

"He _what_?"

"In his defense, it was an accident…I mean, who would have guessed that he could create a spark with two coins? In the storeroom, too. You could see the flames for miles…"

* * *

Part 2: System Crash

"Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window."

-Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple

-Neo Domino City, Syn Tower, 8:30 A.M.-

Divine was content with how his plan was developing so far. There were a few snags, not the least of which was the fact that Sayer and Smith couldn't put their differences aside for a few days, but overall it was running smoothly. The blond Security Chief had left for his post at the moment, but he was due to return shortly. A sudden pain tore through his head.

That was another snag in his plan: that moron Smith had taken the under-no-circumstances-are-these-cells-to-be-occupied cells. And he had gleefully placed the Signers in them without any thought as to how their innate powers—well, the green-haired boy had no powers, but still—would react with the cells. Thus the headaches. He opened a direct line to headquarters.

"Smith," he ground out. "_Why_ are the Signers still in those cells when I explicitly told you to move them _yesterday_?"

"What do you mean? The last time I checked they had been moved," said a harried-looking Smith. First a freak tornado on the Daedalus Bridge causes the black-haired boy and the redhead to escape, and now _this_…

"Well, when was the last time you checked, exactly?"

"About 7:00, when I first got to work."  
"Check again."

"Um, uh, that's the thing…"

"What? Spit it out."

"At 8:17 A.M., right when the Commander showed up at the scene of that Signer chase—he was 30 minutes late, by the way—the entire headquarters network crashed. No warning, it just…crashed."

"And why was I never told of this?" Smith started to respond, but Divine cut him off. "Make excuses later. Just recover the data—what do you pay those technicians for?"

"They tried. But the computers wouldn't accept keyboard, mouse, or vocal input. Not one computer. The data's there, we just can't access or modify it. The only reason that I'm talking to you is because they rewired the comm system through our personal communicators." Silence. "Divine?"

"It's them. Has to be."

"Who do you mean?"

"Get over here, as soon as possible. _After_ you've personally seen the Signers escorted to the M-Facility isolation wing."

-Neo Domino City-

Two teenagers were monitoring events from an underground bunker on the outskirts of the city. The bunker was outfitted with the latest technology—enough to hack into cameras, vehicles…even the Security headquarters.

"That was a good job you did with that virus," one said to the other.

"Oh, it was nothing. Just fix up a simple crash, modify the input programs so that they don't accept any, and chaos ensues."

The first boy nodded slowly. "You know, that's probably the third time that I've understood one of your computer explanations."

"Really? What were the first two?"

"How to turn on a computer and how to throw it out a window. I learned the rest by myself."

"Why would you even lie like that? Saying that I could ever condone throwing a perfectly good computer out a window?" asked the second, horrified. The first one shook his head. His friend was amazingly good with computers, but he could never tell when anyone was pulling a joke on him. He really needed to get out more.

"Back to business. Why did you never do that before?"

"Because Divine is only just now making his move. Once he started setting things in motion, it was time for us to start to act."

"This means that I'll finally be able to finish this?"

"Yes, but you'll have to wait."

"I've waited for two years. A few more days won't make a difference."

"About that…"

"I know what you want to say. And you know what my response will be."

"And _you_ should know that I'll say it anyway. Revenge is self-destructive. Let's pretend that you actually kill Divine and the Syndicate leaders. Are you sure that's what she would want? For you to become a cold-blooded killer?"

"Thanks to them, I'll never know what she would want me to do. I can't forgive them just like that."

"All I'm saying is that revenge isn't the only option."

"It is for me."

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence as events continued to unfold in front of them.

* * *

Part 3: Transfer

-Neo Domino City, Detention Block D, 8:15 A.M.-

Raven and the King had managed to convince themselves that what they had seen the night before was a dream. They had just fallen asleep early and their minds had been fixed on their cells, so they dreamed of something that could help them. That theory couldn't explain the weird dragon carvings on the wall, though…

Prime went back to energetically searching the cell for possible means of escape, with similarly negative results.

Angel sat on her cot, trying to make sense of last night's bizarre happenings. She could accept the possibility of a monster spirit world—the monsters had to come from _somewhere_.

A clone of her from another dimension? Not so easy to accept.

She was still thinking about this when the cell door opened to reveal a bored-looking guard.

"You're to come with me."

"Why?"

"Need-to-know basis, kid. You don't need to know."

"At least tell me where I'm going," said Angel as she stood.

"The M-Facility. Now."

The Mainland Facility, or M-Facility for short, was a base on the mainland that the Syndicate had bought from the government there. It was a place for political prisoners; consequently, it was almost always full, what with the police state that they were running.

Another feature of the M-Facility was that prisoners there were not executed—the mainland government would take offense if prisoners were being killed on their own soil (for some reason, they had no problem with holding prisoners there). If they were to be executed later, they would be moved back to Security headquarters or the Facility.

So the Syndicate had decided not to execute the Signers. That could only be a good thing.

Angel was about to step out of her cell when some instinct prompted her to look back at the carving on the wall. Suddenly, her left hand started to burn like it was on fire. She cried out in pain.

Similar yells told her that her three companions were also experiencing this pain.

It was gone as soon as it arrived, and all that was left of it was the memory and a weird tingling on the back of her hand. The guards decided to ignore that little outburst.

As they stepped out into the hallway, she became a little happier when she saw that her three companions were also being sent off to the M-Facility with her.

At the front gates, they were met by a motorcade of armor-plated jeeps with a pure white stretch limo in the middle. The four Signers were directed to sit in the limo. It was a nice ride, with a bar—non-alcoholic drinks, of course—a TV, and some seriously expensive-looking upholstery. They could sit and almost forget that they were prisoners, except for the handcuffs.

Well, that and the fact that the blond, bespectacled Security Chief was smirking at them from the front seat.

"Make yourselves at home, Signers, this is going to be a _lot_ nicer than your new, ah, lodgings at the M-facility."

"Go to hell, Officer Smith," growled the King.

"Now, now, that's no way to treat someone in my position, now is it, _King_? I'm Security _Chief_ now," sneered Smith. "With a snap of my fingers, I could make your stay in prison quite unpleasant. In fact, you have me to thank for the fact that you're even _alive_ right now; many at headquarters have been clamoring for your very quick, very public execution."

"As a matter of fact, why haven't you killed us yet?" asked Raven shrewdly.

"Um, well, I'm not really at liberty to say…" He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, painfully aware that he had possibly given away a crucial piece of information. Raven zeroed in on it almost immediately.

"Why? An order from your superiors?"

He looked at the floor guiltily, which was tantamount to a confession.

Raven absently reflected on the idiots who managed to get into leadership positions nowadays.

"I think that's all we need to know, guys," he said to the others as they settled in for the ride.

* * *

**A/N: So now we have four unknowns running around the city: this _him_ person, the Commander, and the two teens in the bunker. Who are they, and where do they come in? (Feel free to guess.) Also, Divine's master plan demands that the four free Signers not meet up just yet. When and where will they finally join forces? All of these questions will be answered in the next few chapters. **


	9. Foundations

**A/N: Sorry for the delay, my parents were going nuts about my studying. My first exam, U.S. History, was on Friday, and it was the one that I was the most worried about. I think I did pretty well, though. :)**

**This chapter is a little shorter than the others, and it's not split into parts (partly because I was writing it in between studying and partly because I couldn't really fit this part into a full-length chapter the way I planned). Let me know if you like it better this way or the way it was before.**

**I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, and on we go.**

* * *

**Chapter 8: Foundation**

-Neo Domino City, Syn Tower, 8:40 A.M.-

Divine was pacing back and forth in the conference room when Sayer entered.

"It's about time," he snarled.

Sayer knew better than to ask what he was fuming about, so instead he asked about his role in today's phase of the plan.

"Do you remember your suggestion from last week?" asked Divine. Sayer nodded. "Well, I've decided that it will not interfere with the plan and therefore you have permission to run it—as long as everything is set up by tonight. Got it?"

Sayer looked happier than he had in a long while. "Yes, of course."

"I will be helping you as well. Your targets are about to enter the freeway. Go."

A grin shone on Sayer's face as he entered the elevator.

-Neo Domino City, 8:40 A.M.-

The four Signers and the Security Chief had been traveling in the limo for quite a while. Smith kept quiet to avoid spilling any more important information, while the Signers quietly talked, trying to keep their minds off of their impending return to prison.

Normally, they would be able to look out the window, and the scenery would provide at least a little distraction. However, Smith had decided to turn on the windows' 'supertint' function, which basically made it so that the glass would not let any light in or out. They had to turn on the interior lights to be able to see anything. The driver's seat and passenger seat were also blocked off by the same glass. Smith said that it was to "prevent you guys from getting any ideas".

Being surrounded by armored jeeps wasn't exactly conducive to "getting ideas".

S

Even though he was in a precarious position, Star managed to keep his balance as Akiza maneuvered through the city streets with difficulty. Roads weren't exactly built for huge motorcycles.

They swerved through an industrial area of the city, trying to get to the Bootleg bar. Akiza had never been there, so Star was directing her.

"Left. Stay on this road for a bit…now right—watch out!"

A man was standing in the middle of the now-deserted road. He was rather tall and dressed in white, with a long grey beard and a mask covering his mouth. Akiza slammed on the brakes and tried to swerve around him, but he reached out a hand and brought the bike to an abrupt halt.

_Whoa._

"Listen to what I have to say, Signers." he intoned in a deep voice muffled by the mask. When he began to speak, Akiza stiffened.

"I've seen him before," she whispered. "In my world, he was part of an organization that wanted to destroy New Domino City, but he…uh…I really don't know how to explain it."

"I come bearing a message."

"Well, why don't you start that message with your name?" Star asked pleasantly, jumping down from the bike.

The man in white continued on as if Star had never spoken. "There are two more."

Silence.

"Two more…" Akiza prompted, also climbing down.

"Two more. That is all I'm telling you."

"Wow, that has got to be the most helpful message I've ever heard," Star said, dropping the pleasant tone in favor of sarcasm. "Tell me why we shouldn't just beat the rest of that message out of you." Akiza looked at him nervously, but he didn't notice. The man smirked.

"I'll be leaving now."

"Oh no, you won't!" exclaimed Star, who immediately summoned his Speed Warrior. The monster charged, but the man in white was already gone by the time it had got there.

"Where did he…"

Akiza pointed. "There."

The man was running down the street, fire blasting from the soles of his shoes. He was going faster than any motorcycle could hope to go. After a few seconds, he went around the bend and disappeared from view.

"What…what the hell is he?"

"In my world, he was a cyborg. He ran like that once, trying to catch up to a duel runner—I mean motorcycle."

Star shook his head. "Wow…did he have anything to do with this Sayer of yours?"

"No, but they could have met here or something. Anyway, what is this 'two more' he was talking about? Two more Signers, maybe?"

"I don't know…but we have to get moving." She nodded and started walking toward the motorcycle.

And froze.

"A-Akiza?" he asked tentatively. "What's wrong?" She seemed to be staring at something far off in the distance, her mouth slightly open. He followed her gaze, but there was nothing of interest to be seen. "Hello? Anyone home?" He waved his hand in front of her face. No response. He had started worrying about how he was going to transport a frozen girl when she suddenly unfroze and started walking toward the motorcycle like nothing had happened. She turned back to him, saying "Aren't you coming? I want you to drive this time."

"What the hell just happened?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You—you just—_froze_, and—"

"Star, I think you need your vision checked or something. Let's go."

He had no idea how she could keep denying it with a straight face—he knew what he saw—but he climbed into the driver's seat anyway.

She shot him a sad look from her perch in the back, but he didn't notice.

Y

Rose took them on a winding path through the center of the city to get to the Bootleg bar. The trip went smoothly, apart from one incident in which they nearly crashed into a limo with the darkest tinted windows they'd ever seen.

When they got on the freeway, Yusei saw someone he never expected. Sayer was riding on a motorcycle and he was about to take the next exit. He tapped Rose on the shoulder and pointed the man out to her, fearful of her reaction.

It turned out that she had never seen him in her life.

_B-but who's this him person then?_

There was no time to ask, as Rose concentrated on catching up to Sayer, which she did after a few minutes. The brown-haired psychic seemed amused when they started keeping pace with him.

"Well, hello, Mr. Fudo!" he shouted over the rushing wind. "And what brings you here this fine day?"

"Why did you send us here, Sayer?" retorted Yusei.

"Follow me, and I'll tell you." He turned down a side street after getting off the exit ramp. As they sped through narrow alleys, Rose's skills were tested to the limit in trying to keep up with Sayer.

He rounded a corner, and as the two Signers were about to make the turn as well, a blast of wind hurled Rose off the bike—but not Yusei. Too stunned to react, he could only watch helplessly as she tumbled through the air, but she used her powers to cushion her fall and land softly. He quickly lunged forward, managing to complete the turn, and then settled into the driver's seat as he began to turn back for her. Rose shouted, "Go on, get him! I'll follow you!"—she was facing the wrong way for some reason—and he turned back to follow Sayer once again. After a short while, he had evened the gap.

"That was a dirty trick," he yelled.

"But now we can settle this one-on-one."

They continued to weave through the alleys until they reached a huge warehouse. There were no workers in the warehouse when they got there. Odd.

Sayer dismounted from his motorcycle and walked in, beckoning for Yusei to follow. Once he stepped inside, the door locked itself.

He hadn't counted on settling things this early, but he was looking forward to ending Sayer's ambitions and his influence on Akiza—permanently.

Their last battle had been one-sided (psychic sword and fireballs vs. duel disk) but he had won anyway, admittedly with the timely assistance of a hidden microphone and a giant immortal lizard. This time, now that he had powers to match his, their battle would be a lot more even.

Sayer turned to face him, smiling mirthlessly. "So, Mr. Fudo, we meet again."

"Why did you send us here, Sayer?" repeated Yusei, wanting to get straight to the point.

He chuckled. "Let's just say that I want to create an 'Arcadia' of sorts, since my first attempt failed. A world where psychics rule, where they can repay society's cruelty toward them in kind."

Yusei shook his head. "Don't you ever learn? It won't work. Has it occurred to you that most psychics are _happy_ now that the Arcadia Movement is finished? Seeing as Akiza, a known psychic, helped save the world twice has kinda changed people's opinions on psychics as a whole."

"When I said that psychics would rule, who do you think would be at their head? This is as much about me wanting power as anything. Only I can guide the world to its proper place—well, only Divine and I. And you, Akiza,"—_you're not even fit to speak her name—_"and the rest of your pathetic Signers are means to an end, that's all."

"Don't speak about her like that!"

"I can do whatever I want, Fudo—that's what this is all about."

And suddenly he was overcome with anger. "You know what, Sayer? I'm tired of you. I'm tired of you and your 'psychics should rule the world' nonsense. I'm tired of having to deal with you every time you want to manipulate Akiza to your own ends. I'm tired of seeing the look in Akiza's eyes whenever you're mentioned. I—"

"_I_ don't care about your issues, Fudo," he snarled, starting to advance on the Signer. A slight breeze ruffled Yusei's jacket and hair—Sayer was gathering power to himself.

Time to fight.

With startling speed, Yusei's duel disk activated and he slapped a card down. "Speed Warrior!" A relatively weak monster to test his defenses. The skating warrior appeared and instantly sped toward Sayer, who simply kept advancing. Speed Warrior's spin kick glanced off an invisible shield that he had constructed around himself.

_Are my new powers really up to par with his?_

Before he could marshal Speed Warrior for another attack, Sayer unleashed the blast that he had been charging. Yusei flew backward, slamming painfully into a steel container.

"Speed…Warrior…" he managed to croak, trying unsuccessfully to get up. Sayer was definitely going all-out. His warrior charged at Sayer again, but this time the psychic made a sweeping motion towards him, sending him into a wall with enough force to destroy him.

_What…what is this…_

Sayer reached out a hand toward him as he struggled to his feet. He was only upright for a moment before he doubled over, clutching his head. The psychic had given him the mother of all headaches; his brain had been replaced by a raging inferno, his head was burning from the inside out—

And the headache was gone, as soon as it had come. By this time, he was curled up on the floor.

At that moment, he realized how painfully outmatched he was. There had to be _something…_

He got painfully to his feet, pulling an object out of his pocket and swiftly hiding it behind his back. It was the stunner that he had taken from the guard the previous day.

He locked the trigger in the "on" position.

"You have no idea how much I want to kill you, Fudo…no idea at all." Sayer looked positively insane, with his hair blown into a tangle by the psychic wind that he was creating. "But I can't give in to that temptation yet, so I have to settle for scaring you a little." He stretched a hand out, and suddenly there was a crushing pressure on Yusei's throat. It took all of Yusei's concentration not to let his right hand come out from behind his back as his left scrabbled uselessly at his throat.

"Going up, Fudo?" Sayer spat mockingly. He made a motion like he was throwing a ball straight up, and Yusei flew. His back slammed into a skylight—at least he hadn't been sent into the actual ceiling—and the shock caused him to drop the stunner.

Sayer had thrown him with enough force to break the window and still keep going. Yusei could only stare dumbly as the buildings became smaller and smaller.

R

Being thrown off a moving bike was disconcerting, to say the least. She had managed to keep her head long enough to send Yusei off after Sayer—of course he would have tried to come back for her—but then she curled into a fetal position and waited for the world to stop spinning.

She shakily got up, trying to see where they had gone. This was an industrial area filled with two-story warehouses and factories.

_Gotta get a better vantage point._

There was a warehouse in front of her with a ladder leading up to the roof. She climbed up and started looking around, spinning in a slow circle. All was peaceful for a few minutes.

Then she saw a weird black shape suddenly fly up and out of a warehouse skylight a few blocks away, trailing tiny shards of glass as it ascended.

That was as good a place to start as any.

She ran to the edge of the building and jumped, gathering the wind behind her for an extra boost. In a few moments she was jumping from roof to roof on her way to the mysterious warehouse.

Y

Yusei was finally starting to slow down noticeably. By this point, he could barely pick the people on the ground out of their surroundings.

Sayer was _strong._

_But he only wants to scare me, so he's going to catch me…right?_

His life started flashing before his eyes regardless. Actually, the only memories he was seeing were those of Akiza.

He reached the apex and stopped for an infinitesimal moment. And then he started to drop.

Instinctively, he spread his arms out to slow his fall, but it didn't really work. All he could think about was the fact that he would make a nice splatter on the ground if Sayer didn't catch him. Some small voice in the back of his mind started muttering: _accelerating at 9.8 meters per second squared…_

Hey, at least he still remembered the physics homework that Akiza had often come to him with. Although now that he thought about it, he got the feeling that she had understood a lot more than she had let on at the time.

He was steadily approaching terminal velocity—_the speed at which drag becomes equal to the force of gravity_. Luckily the wind hadn't taken him, so he was falling directly toward the hole he had made in the skylight. If he squinted, he could make out a person-shaped speck in the hole.

Although why he was lying on his back—or was it his front?—was beyond him. Then the realization hit.

_I dropped the stunner. Sayer was right below me…Oh crapohcrapohcrapI'mgonnadie—_

The wind rushing past his head seemed to get stronger somehow. And now that he thought about it, his fall seemed to be slowing…

A few seconds later, he could make out a second person on the roof. He hadn't seen him before because he had been standing upright and all he had seen was a speck.

_Wait, not him. Her._

Rose was standing on the roof, reaching toward him with a single hand.

_That was a close one._

She set him on the roof upright, but his body was still in a state of shock because of the fall and his legs refused to support him. He collapsed to the and just lay there, panting, for a few moments.

"That was quite a drop, Yusei."

"Tell me…about it," he said shakily, not wanting to get up.

"So what happened, anyway?"

He explained how Sayer had confronted him and how the stunner had somehow managed to fall straight on him. She offered him her hand, and he pulled himself up.

"Let's hear what Sayer has to say," said Rose. They jumped down into the hole, landing a few feet away from the psychic's unconscious body. Now that they were closer, they could see two small red marks on his forehead. The stunner was lying next to him.

"Headshot," grinned Rose.

"Lucky me."

A fierce wind started blowing through the warehouse.

"Oh, what now?" asked Yusei, exasperated.

The glass shards that had once been a skylight started flying around, causing both Signers to jump back and shield their faces. When they looked again, another person was standing in front of them. He looked exactly like Sayer, except that he didn't have a scar on his face.

"Who are you?" asked Rose.

"For now, all you need to know is that I'm Sayer's counterpart," said the man. His voice seemed calmer, more measured than Sayer's.

"That's not enough for us, buddy. Now what's your name?" said Yusei.

The man offered the pair a mocking salute as Sayer's limp body rose into the air behind him, ignoring the black-haired boy's question completely. "I will be seeing you both soon, but I think that a little…parting gift...is in order. If you'll excuse me…"

Glass whipped around all of them, and when it settled again, the two men were gone…and the warehouse started rumbling.

They made a beeline for the door. Yusei got there first and slammed his shoulder into it as he turned the doorknob, about half a second before he realized that Sayer had locked it. He rubbed his now aching shoulder as he turned back.

"Locked."

Rose advanced to the door, placed her hand on the doorknob. For a few seconds, she looked like she was attempting to unlock the door psychically, but instead she opted to knock the door off its hinges.

_I forgot how powerful they are._

She slid into the driver's seat, and Yusei had only barely jumped onto the back when she started accelerating. Behind them, the warehouse collapsed to the ground.

-Syn Tower-

Sayer was lying on the conference table. Divine gave him a jolt to wake him up.

"You came up with this yourself. Did this brilliant plan of yours happen to include getting knocked out by a stunner that had a one-in-a-million chance of landing on you? Yes, I was watching. You have _no idea_ how much damage control I had to do because of that stupid blunder."

"It worked, didn't it?"

Divine sighed. "Yes, it did." _Unfortunately._

"Good. When this succeeds"—_Ha. You are a very misguided soul, aren't you?_—"we'll be that much closer to the fulfillment of this plan."

_Or it will fail miserably and we'll have to revert to my original plan._

"Anyway, what's the situation?"

"Smith's seeing the Signers to the M-Facility—can you believe that idiot left them in the cells after I explicitly told him to move them?—and then he'll report here. Jose's out doing who-knows-what."

"So at the end of today we can move to phase 3?"

"That is the current schedule. Of course, that will only hold until one of you idiots messes it up."

"I'm deeply hurt that you have so little faith in us, Divine," said Sayer, his expression one of exaggerated hurt. Divine flicked the marks on his forehead.

"Can you really blame me?"

* * *

**A/N: So now Sayer's got a plan. How will it affect the Signers? And what's going to happen at the end of the day? Keep reading to find out.**


	10. Convergence

**A/N: I am really, really sorry about the incredibly long gap between last chapter and this one. For some reason, quite a few of my teachers chose mid-May to early June as the time to dump the most work on us. Add to that two weeks of exams and the fact that I contracted 'senioritis' a couple of years early, and you've got a perfect recipe for writing very, very slowly.**

**wheeliebreaker2: I prefer calling it 'a happy accident', haha. I actually did put a bunch of random references to random things throughout the story. Maybe I'll post a list on my profile sometime.**

**I (still) don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's.**

**And so we go.**

* * *

**Chapter 9: Convergence  
**

Part 1: Apprehension

-Neo Domino City, 8:50 A.M.-

"We have a problem," Star said suddenly as he bypassed the exit that would lead them to the Bootleg bar.

"Well, don't you think that missing the exit might have something to do with it?" asked Akiza gently, swaying with the motion of the motorcycle.

"You may not know this, but Rose and I basically top the Syndicate's Most Wanted list, along with the rest of the Signers. And since you are almost identical to Rose, they'll mistake you for her."

"So…"

"So if people in the city see us on a humongous bike, they'll probably take notice and report us. The only reason we haven't been reported already is because we're wearing helmets and people usually don't make calls on a freeway."

"But then why didn't anyone report me when I was wandering around the Satellite?"

He was thoughtful for a moment. "For the better part of 20 years, the Satellite and Neo Domino have been separated. There was a huge earthquake or something. Anyway, the Syndicate repressed the Satellite even more than the city, but recently they were convinced to link the two parts of the city."

"Just like in my world…"

"But old habits die hard, I guess, which is why nobody called Security."

"Anyway, do you know what we should do?"

"Yeah, I just need to find the place first."

A few minutes later, he pulled into a rest stop, took off his helmet, and jumped down, motioning for Akiza to do the same. As she prepared to jump, though, she slipped and started to fall.

Instinctively, Star caught her—the air whooshed out of him, she was a little heavier than he had expected—and fell back. They ended up face-to-face, a furiously blushing Star looking up at a furiously blushing Akiza as their noses almost touched.

It was incredibly hard for him to remember that he wasn't staring at Rose, and therefore trying to make a move would be rather inappropriate. Not to mention that they were at a rest stop.

They stayed in that position for a little longer than was necessary, slightly dazed, until Akiza seemed to come to her senses, stood up, and picked up her helmet, offering him her hand.

"So what's the plan?" she asked, still blushing slightly.

"We Signers have been trying to liberate Neo Domino City for a while now, and we've come to realize that things don't always go as planned and sometimes you need an escape route. So we hid a bunch of cars at different rest stops scattered around the city, like this one here, just in case we're on our own and can't get help. By the way, we did teach the twins to drive."

"And where do you hide these cars of yours?"

"The best place. In plain sight." He pointed. A rusty, dented sedan was parked in the far corner of the lot, placed in a position that made it hard to see from the street.

"Hmm…that does discourage people from investigating it, but what about thieves, or Security? They could just run a check on the car, or just decide that it's an eyesore and decide to tow it. And that's assuming that it actually _works_."

"Well, chop shops don't want cars that obviously malfunction—even though our cars are actually faster than most—and the Syndicate doesn't really care. Shall we?"

Star reached for the communicator hanging at his hip as they started walking to the car. Akiza, noticing this, asked, "W-What are you doing?"

_Why the stutter?_ He responded, "I want to call Rose, see if they found my message."

"I don't think that that's a good idea. We might distract them at a critical moment or something. Let's just wait and meet up with them."

"But—"

"Do you trust them?"

"…Yes."

"So trust them to come after us."

"But there's still nothing wrong with calling—"

"Please, let's just get going," she said, almost pleading. They had reached the car.

"Okay." He opened the door for her, slid into the driver's seat, and rummaged around under the floor mat, pulling out a screwdriver. He jammed it in the keyhole and turned. The car started.

"Um…"

"No, we didn't steal the cars. Carrying around that many sets of keys is impractical, so using our secret method is a lot easier," he said, winking at her. (**A/N: No, I will not divulge this 'secret method'. If you want to learn how to steal a car, find that out by yourself. ;)**

They left the rest stop.

The manager of the rest stop would later contact Security about a pair of car thieves, but as he did not know the license plate number of the stolen car and "black-haired boy" and "redheaded girl" are hardly comprehensive descriptions, the resulting investigation went nowhere.

-9:00 A.M.-

The bar was a small, clean establishment with an impressive array of drinks behind the counter. Star wasn't too interested in them, though; even if he hadn't had a bad experience a year ago involving a very drunk Raven, a very angry Rose, and some very persistent Securities, he was still underage. Akiza drew some odd looks because of the duel disk on her arm, but the light was dim, so nobody seemed to recognize them.

They took a table in the back and settled in to wait.

-9:10 A.M.-

Star finished his fifth glass of milk and signaled for more. Akiza shook her head, still nursing her first glass of cola.

"You'd better hope that there's a bathroom in this bar. A _clean_ one."

"What can I say? This milk is good. And there is a bathroom, by the way." She shook her head again, returning to her drink. Her eyes flicked over to the door, then back to Star, which she had been doing for the entire time they had been there. Finally, Star asked, "Why do you keep doing that?"

"Doing what?"

"Looking at the door."

"I…can't wait for them to get here. Don't you feel the same?"

_Of course I do. _"Hey, they'll come when they come, and staring at the door won't make them come any faster." He leaned back and closed his eyes for a few minutes.

"I…can't…"

Star opened one eye at the sound of those mumbled words. Akiza was looking at him, a weird expression on her face. "What was that?"

"N-nothing," she stammered, looking away quickly.

_After that incident with that cyborg guy, she's been acting really shifty… _But being around Rose for a couple years had taught him the value of just letting her work out her moods. "If you say so."

What he didn't realize was that no matter how similar they appeared, Rose and Akiza were not as similar as he might think.

His eye closed again.

And promptly reopened when he heard sirens. "Ugh…not _again_."

"Maybe it's not for us," ventured Akiza, but even she didn't sound convinced.

"Well, it'd look pretty suspicious if we just ran out of here, so act natural and keep a hand on your whatever-you-call-it."

She had no time to correct him. Three Security officers entered the bar, showed their ID's to the bartender, and started walking between the tables.

Out of the corner of her mouth, Akiza asked, "Isn't there another way out?"

"Of course there's another way out. It's behind the bar. Which is right behind those three officers."

"Great."

The three officers simultaneously turned in the direction of the pair. _How did they—_

Akiza's hand fluttered, and suddenly she was clutching one of her cards with a look of dread on her face. _What's her problem?_

"Not yet," said Star quietly. "They might not be looking at us."

Two of the officers advanced toward the corner where they were sitting, shoving drunk patrons out of the way, while the third stayed back.

"I think that they were looking at us." Akiza's soft voice was humorous, but Star could clearly sense that she was worried—she exhibited many of the same behaviors as Rose.

_We can't exactly start blasting through people to get out…ideas, ideas…_

No ideas presented themselves.

The officer in the lead pulled out a gun, and that was when Star knew that they were completely out of luck. He couldn't exactly pull out his own pistol—he didn't want to hit anyone with a stray bullet—and he was sure that the officers had no qualms about shooting innocent bystanders.

"I think we've lost this one, Star." Akiza seemed to have had the same thought.

The officer gestured toward the pair with his gun. "You and you, stand up, hands in the air." They complied silently. "That them?" he asked the officer standing next to him.

The second officer, who had pulled his cap low over his eyes, simply said "Yes." Star heard a sharp intake of breath from Akiza at the sound of the voice. _But how would she know anyone from this world? Well, she had been running around for a while before I met her, and this guy might have a counterpart in her world...this whole dimension-jumping thing is so confusing sometimes._

"Then you two are under arrest. Step forward, hands out." said the leading officer. Handcuffs clicked on their wrists, and an officer fitted a clear plastic band around each of their necks. Inhibitors.

The second officer told the first to search the pair.

"Why? We're not supposed to do that until we get to the station—"

"And if we don't search them, they'll be a lot more likely to pull off an escape attempt before we get to the station, and where would we be then?"

The first officer received a death glare from Star as his pistol was pulled out of his jacket holster. "I don't suppose that you have a license for this gun? Thought not."

The next item to go was his communicator, which to his surprise was on.

_How could I have been so stupid? They tracked my signal. But when did I leave it on?_

Beside him, officer number two took great pleasure in searching Akiza before pushing her toward the door, gesturing for Star and his officer to follow. The black-haired boy had to pause his fantasy of choking officer 2 in order to avoid the other customers.

A minute later, Star was in the back of a Security car. They hadn't confiscated his summon stones, Akiza's duel disk, or her cards, probably because of the inhibitors. Akiza's officer had pulled her aside to have a private conversation with her. He tried to sneak a glimpse at the pair, but the windows were tinted so darkly that even he couldn't see outside. After a few seconds, she sat inside the car, clenching her fists even as she futilely tried to pull her handcuffs apart.

"You okay?" he asked quietly. She didn't respond.

Officer two told the driver to take a circuitous route but declined to ride with them, which was fortunate for him because Star's handcuffs were starting to look a lot like a garrote…

* * *

Part 2:

-Neo Domino City, 8:55 A.M.-

Being on the back of Rose's motorcycle gave Yusei time to think. It also kept his mind off of the many minor injuries he had acquired during his fight with Sayer.  
_Don't lie to yourself. That was a slaughter._

Up until this point, he had been pretty much invincible. Sure, there had been some hairy moments, such as his time as a mine worker and his first duel with Kalin as a Dark Signer—_Now why did those both involve Kalin?_—but he had always come out on top. He had defeated a psychic who dealt with trickery and lies at his own game; he had prevented the destruction of the city twice; he had even defeated a prophecy that predicted his own demise! All of those achievements had come about as a result of his cheating death; as a result, he had developed a pretty cavalier attitude about death and dying—he had been worried about dying the first few times that he had gotten into a situation, but after a while, it just became another part of normal life. Get up, brush your teeth, fix Duel Runners, duel to the death in order to save the world.

His friends had also seemed to exhibit the same tendency to survive: Sherry had been launched into a wormhole and came out good as new, Nico and West's father had hung from a switch in the mines until he got rescued (**A/N: Yusei's world is the 4Kids one.**), the Crimson Dragon had caught Leo when he fell off a highway. Apparently the protection effect extended to enemies as well, what with Sayer's sudden resurrection.

For this reason, even though he was harboring some feelings for a certain red-haired duelist, he never worked up enough nerve to tell her anything. _Just take your time,_ his inner voice said. _It's not like either of you are going to die anytime soon._

That comfortable notion went out the window at about the same time that he saw Sayer's unconscious body through the skylight. For the first time, he had really, truly thought that he was going to die, and more importantly, there was nothing he could do about it_._ He had always had a plan, always had help, always had a trap that he had set in the beginning of the duel. He had always had a fighting chance. Not that time. That time, there was no ally to rely on or plan to think about; there was only the thought that he would splatter nicely across the warehouse floor.

Facing certain death also tends to set your priorities straight.

Right now, priority number 1 was telling a certain redhead of his feelings, just in case Sayer actually tried to kill him next time.

-9:18 A.M.-

They were on the final leg of their journey to the bar, which was uneventful except for one moment in which Rose took a rather long detour to avoid a suspicious-looking Security car with tinted windows—_What's with all the tinted windows today?_

Stomach aflutter at the prospect of finally revealing his feelings for Akiza, Yusei stepped into the bar, which was exactly as he remembered. Even the bartender looked the same. For a second he was tempted to ask for a glass of milk…_Hey, is Blister in this world?_

Rose scanned the bar. "I don't see them anywhere…"

Before Yusei could try to figure out what they should do, the bartender waved them over and greeted them with a cheery "Didn't you two just get arrested?"

The bartender, even though he was clearly confused, told them about Star and Akiza getting arrested. His account ended with two statements: the windows of the car they were taken away in were the darkest that he had ever seen, and they had probably just set a record for the fastest escape from the police.

Yusei muttered, "You have got to be kidding…"

Rose said incredulously, "We _passed_ them."

Suddenly, he stood straight and turned to face Rose. "We might still be able to catch up if we hurry."

"Do you know which way they went?" Rose asked the bartender.

"Well, he told you, didn't he?" Rose shot him the kind of glare that could melt steel. "The M-Facility, ok? The fastest way is to get on a helicopter from the eastern docks, so that's probably where they're headed."

Rose was out the door the moment he finished his explanation, with Yusei close behind.

_So close, yet so far._

-9:31 A.M.-

Rose had covered half of the distance from the bar to the docks in record time, trying to catch up to the Security car that held their friends. The buildings, cars, and people around them resolved into one big gray blur as they passed.

_Actually,_ Yusei thought with a jolt, _she's going fast enough to Accel Synchro Summon if she wanted…_

There had been no conversation; Yusei did not want to mess up Rose's concentration when they were driving that fast. More time to think. He wasn't too worried about rescuing them. Securities were lightweights. No, he spent the minutes agonizing about what he was going to say.

First off, he had no desire to embarrass himself in front of Star and Rose, so they would need some privacy.

_Now, what to say, what to say…_

There was the direct approach: just go up to her and say, "I love you." _I'd probably chicken out halfway through the "I"._

Or he could just kiss her. _And that would be a toss-up between her returning it and her knocking me into next week for being a pervert._

Or he could…

"Found them," said Rose, shaking him out of his reverie. Their quarry was a few car lengths in front of them, speeding down a deserted road. From that angle, he could just barely see the unnaturally dark tint on the back windows.

"Yeah, that's them. Any way we could convince them to pull over?"

S

Star had tried to figure out where they were headed, but the fact that they couldn't see out the windows hindered his attempts. He had also tried to find out why Akiza was so agitated, and he attained the same level of success: zero.

On the other side of the darkened, soundproof, bulletproof divider, the two officers seemed to be arguing about something.

_*pop*_

The sound was so short that he wasn't sure if he had imagined it. However, when the car started weaving a bit, he figured out what the sound was. One of the front tires had blown. That would have been a perfect opportunity to escape, except that they had those blasted inhibitors on. He could see it now: He'd summon a small monster, have it slice off his and Akiza's cuffs, and they would quickly subdue the officers, replace the tire, and drive off. They definitely had to find a way to counter those inhibitor collars.

The officers pulled over and seemed to come to a decision. They pulled out their pistols before exiting, for some reason.

*_thudthud*_

That sound was completely alien to him.

The car's front rose a few inches, but the way it lifted felt odd. It felt unsteady, like a person was lifting it.

The car leveled out again, both doors opened, and two figures slid into the front seats. The one in the driver's seat pressed the button to open the divider while the passenger fiddled with the dashboard. He heard a female, robotic voice say, "Tracker disabled".

Star had never been happier to see Rose in his life.

The extreme happiness that he felt at seeing one of his best friends was immediately offset by the extremely creepy feeling he got when the person in the driver's seat turned around.

He looked into his own eyes—and he wasn't in front of a mirror.

His eyes raked down his counterpart's face, noting the differences, then flicked his gaze down to his arm, which sported a similar machine to the one that Akiza had. _Nice._

Beside him, Akiza gasped as she noticed the long scar on Yusei's face. "Yusei, what—"

"Happened to my face? Sayer's warrior sliced me. It didn't hurt, though. And you can tell us"—he pointed at Star, then back to himself—"apart really easily now!" he said cheerfully.

Star held up his handcuffs. "You guys did bring the keys, right?"

"Of course..._not_," Rose said, but she was betrayed by the grin that spread across her face.

-Seaside, 9:40 A.M.-

Introductions had been quick, as they didn't really want to stick around and wait for someone to pass by. Rose did take the time to slice off their collars and open their handcuffs before hopping back onto the Bloody Kiss and leading Yusei to an alley near the beach, between two seemingly abandoned buildings. Once they had reached a certain spot, Star got out and started running his hands over the wall on the right side.

"What's he doing?" asked Akiza.

Star seemed to find what he was looking for, and he tapped it with a finger. A hidden panel in the wall slid open, and Rose and Yusei parked their respective vehicles.

Looking around, Yusei felt that he had stepped into paradise. The left wall of the garage was stocked from bottom to top with various tools. Spare parts lined several rows of shelves to the right. Best of all, an awesome-looking jet-black motorcycle was sitting off to the side.

"Like it?" asked Star, coming up behind him. "This is my favorite safehouse. It's listed as belonging to some guy, but in reality he lives on the other side of town has no idea that this place exists. Security doesn't care enough to ask him, either." He walked over to the motorcycle. "And _this_ is my pet project. I call it the Black Star. Zero to sixty in 2.2 seconds. Not exactly street legal, haha. It's a little unstable, though."

Yusei happily started examining the motorcycle, thinking about how amazing it would be as a Duel Runner.

Rose took off her helmet, rolled her eyes, and beckoned to Akiza. "Let's leave them to it. Would you like a tour of this safehouse, Akiza?"

Akiza smiled. "Sure." They walked up the stairs and out of the garage and started looking through the building. Rose placed her summon stones in her room, and Akiza took the King's room as her temporary residence. Not surprisingly, it was the largest bedroom.

Rose called Yusei up to choose his bedroom, and he chose Raven's.

After they had all settled in, they went down to the living room for a strategy session. Star lounged on the couch next to Rose while Yusei and Akiza sat awkwardly on the love seat. It was 9:55 by the time they had brought each other up to speed on their adventures so far. Akiza kept looking at the clock for some reason.

Star decided to kick things off. "So, I think that our first priority should be to rescue the rest of the Signers from the Facility. When we're all together, we can combine our abilities, figure out what Sayer and Divine are up to, grab the stones from Security headquarters, remove the Syndicate from power, and come up with a way to send you guys home! So how do we start?"

"Slow down there, Star," Yusei said. "Let's start with the 'what Sayer's up to' part. We know that he wants to create his own 'Arcadia', and we also know that he tried that already with the Arcadia Movement"—Akiza's lowered her gaze—"but that failed. So do you think that he wants to get all of the psychics in the Syndicate on his side and try again?"

"There's a problem with that theory," said Rose. "The thing is…as far as we know, I'm the only psychic left in the entire city, besides Sayer and Divine, and now Akiza."

"What?"

"From what you told us, it seems that your world has a lot of psychics. It's completely the opposite in our world. Psychics are very rare here. It also doesn't help that the Syndicate tried to exterminate every psychic in the city a few years after they came to power." Her eyes were sorrowful at the mention of this. "All of the psychics that survived, including me, either tried to live on our own or joined the freedom fighters. One by one, they all died, killed by the Syndicate. Except me. There may be more outside the city, but they probably won't help us, and we don't have the time to go looking for them either." Star straightened up and placed his arm around her. She relaxed a little at his touch and leaned in to him. There was silence for a few moments.

Yusei continued his thought process. "Okay, so then Sayer's good friends with someone in the Syndicate, and he wants to use them to create Arcadia? Come to think of it, how many people do you know are in the Syndicate?"

Star answered, "We know about all of the ranking officials, except the leader. He acts through a puppet named …D something…Demak, that's it."

"Sounds an awful lot like 'Devack', doesn't it, Akiza?" asked Yusei. Startled, Akiza glanced up from the clock and nodded. 9:59. For the benefit of the other two, Yusei said, "In our world, Devack was a Dark Signer, but after the Signers defeated the Dark Signers, he disappeared. Is Demak tall with tan skin?" Star nodded. "It might be him, then…"

Rose opened her mouth to add something, but the clock struck ten before she could speak. At that moment, two things happened in quick succession.

First, Yusei's and Akiza's Signer marks started burning. Not red, as they usually did, but clear gold, as they had when they had first met Rose and Star. At the same time, Star and Rose both felt a burning sensation on the backs of their left hands.

A few moments later, both boys doubled over, clutching their heads in pain.

"What's…going…on…" groaned Yusei in a voice that tore at Akiza's heart.

In seconds, they were both unconscious. Rose also put a hand to her head, but all Akiza felt was a small buzzing sensation. _It's started._

Rose quickly checked the vitals of both Yusei and Star, breathing a sigh of relief when she confirmed that they were both fine. "Let's move them up to their rooms," she said, voice filled with obvious pain.

Together, they moved the guys up to their chosen rooms and tucked them in. Akiza lingered awhile at Yusei's bedside, just looking at him. He'd probably wake up sweaty, but she wasn't about to strip him.

She sighed once, then helped Rose into her own bed. Tucking herself in was a novel experience.

As she turned to leave, her gaze lingered on the dresser, where she knew Rose kept her summon stones…and her weapons.

A few seconds later, she was lying in bed as well. No point in wandering around when none of the others were up. She settled down for a restless nap.

-Syn Tower-

Divine received a call on the penthouse viewscreen. He tapped a button and Sayer's face popped into view.

Without greeting him, Sayer breathlessly asked, "Did you do what I asked? I want to make the reveal..._private._"

"Yes, I did. When next they wake up, your plan will succeed."

_Not for long. But there's no need to tell him that._

* * *

**A/N: So Sayer's plan is about to come to fruition. What is it, and how will it affect our heroes? All (or part) will be revealed next chapter.**_  
_


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